Review of West Side Story (2021) by Mauro_Lanari — 15 Apr 2022

(Mauro Lanari).

Elegant, fluid, rhythmed. Ordinary administration for Spielberg. Three notes. 1) If it's a musical, why not judge the quality of the score as well? It was not done for the mediocre ones of "Les Misérables" (Hooper 2012) and "La La Land" (Chazelle 2016), in this case "America" is catchy and little more. Among the problems of recent Disney musicals there is precisely a deficit of unforgettable songs. 2) Who compares it to "Romeo and Juliet" has ever read Shakespeare's version? Does he know that tragedy was not invented by him, that it has a very long tradition, did he ever watch the underrated film adaptation directed by Castellani in '54? 3) The youthful social clash does not dare or risk Coppola's experimentalism ("Rumble Fish" 1983) with his compositional masterpiece "Don't Box Me In".