Film critics have given near universal acclaim to the 20th Century Studios film adaptation of the 1957 stage musical West Side Story, which opens in US and UK cinemas on December 10, the 60th anniversary of the release of the Oscar-winning 1961 film adaptation. The 2021 creative team includes Leonard Bernstein (music), Stephen Sondheim (lyrics), Tony Kushner (screenplay), Steven Spielberg (direction), Justin Peck (choreography), Janusz Kaminski (cinematography), Sarah Broshar and Michael Kahn (editing), Adam Stockhausen (production design), Deborah Jensen (art direction), Rena DeAngelo (set decoration), Paul Tazewell (costumes), Judy Chin (makeup), and Kay Georgiou (hair).
The cast includes Ansel Elgort (Tony), Rachel Zegler (María), Ariana DeBose (Anita), David Alvarez (Benardo), Mike Faist (Riff), Rita Moreno (Valentina), Corey Stoll (Lt. Schrank), and Brian d’Arcy James (Sgt. Krupke), with Kyle Allen (Balkan), Ben Cook (Mouthpiece), Kyle Coffman (Ice), Kevin Csolak (Diesel), Myles Erlick (Snowboy), John Michael Fiumara (Big Deal), Patrick Higgins (Baby John), Jess LeProtto (A-Rab), and Iris Means (Anybodys) as the Jets and Yassmin Alers (Lluvia), Andréa Burns (Fausta), Annelise Cepero (Provi), Ana Isabelle (Rosalia), Ilda Mason (Luz), Josh Andrés Rivera (Chino), Tanairi Sade Vazquez (Charita), and Jamila Velazquez (Meche) as the Sharks.
Guardian (Peter Bradshaw): Leonard Bernstein’s score and Stephen Sondheim’s lyrics blaze out with fierce new clarity. … This new West Side Story isn’t updated historically yet neither is it a shot-for-shot remake. But daringly, and maybe almost defiantly, it reproduces the original period ambience with stunning digital fabrications of late-1950s New York whose authentic detail co-exists with an unashamed theatricality. On the big screen the effect is hyperreal. … West Side Story is contrived, certainly, a hothouse flower of musical theatre, and Spielberg quite rightly doesn’t try hiding any of those stage origins. His mastery of technique is thrilling; I gave my heart to this poignant American fairytale of doomed love. 5 out of 5 stars.
Indepdendent (Clarisse Loughrey): Until a week ago, I’d argue that there was very little point in such a pristine replica of a classic. And then we lost the man who could write about love so fluently. … Spielberg’s film is a final tribute to Sondheim’s work. If it achieves anything, let it remind us of exactly who the world lost when the composer died last Friday. … Justin Peck’s choreography recognises that there is no West Side Story without the finger snaps and balletic sweeps, but still finds its very own rhythm, captured by Spielberg’s camera with an elegant dynamism. … All those technical triumphs only complicate what feels like an unanswerable question: how can a film look this good, feel so moving, and still come up lacking? 3 out of 5 stars.
Telegraph (Robbie Collin): West Side Story is, I believe, Spielberg’s finest film in 20 years, and a new milestone in the career of one of our greatest living directors. … Rather than follow in its 1961 forerunner’s gravity-defying steps, Spielberg and his screenwriter Tony Kushner have stripped down its story of feuding gangs and yearning lovers to its parts, then rebuilt it with new colour and dynamics. … The result is miraculous: a film which fuses the colour and euphoria of a Golden Age movie musical with the teeming, dirty-fingernailed grandeur of a classic American immigrant epic. … Spectacle and sentiment aren’t vying powers here, but complementary forces, each propelling the other to bewitching new heights. 5 out of 5 stars.
Time Out (Phil de Semlyen): How do you outdo a film that won ten Oscars? Here’s how. There’s a substrata of genius-level artists at work here: from Spielberg himself, who delivers his best film in nearly 20 years, to the late, great Stephen Sondheim (lyricist), Jerome Robbins (choreographer), Leonard Bernstein (arrangements) and William Shakespeare (most of the rest of it) — and you can really feel it. … So what are the flaws? Well, as always with a source story in which Tybalt is far more badass than Romeo, the lovie-dovie central couple feel underpowered compared with the live wires around them. … You need a pretty high tolerance for finger-snapping, too. Beyond that, everything sings. 5 out of 5 stars.
USA Today (Brian Truitt): Steven Spielberg worked wonders with a shark before, and he makes magic with a bunch of Sharks and some Jets, too. For the first time, the Oscar-winning director puts his stamp on a movie musical. And he doesn’t disappoint. … Spielberg’s take doesn’t stray too far from the original 1957 Romeo & Juliet-inspired Broadway musical or the 1961 best picture winning-film, but is rather a more authentic, dynamic and thoughtful revamp. … The director’s been around the block enough to not mess with greatness, instead touching up the paint on a classic narrative and leaning into a love story as relevant as ever. 3-1/2 out of 4 stars.
Vanity Fair (Richard Lawson): Leonard Bernstein’s early blares — of glorious arrival and ominous warning — are so familiar, so enshrined in cultural memory, that it seems entirely unnecessary to re-create them on film. Why bother, when the old thing still feels so definitive? … To, I must admit, my great surprise, they pretty much pull it off, creating a West Side Story for new generations to thrill to, and giving purists only a few reasons to haughtily sniff in its direction. … Spielberg and Kushner have done justice to what Bernstein, Robbins, and the quite recently late Stephen Sondheim made all those years ago — not subverting its enduring value, but rather, with fire and grace, doing so much to earn it.