You can guess why I was in no hurry to see this. I had rewatched the original movie only a few years ago, plus a stage production a few years before that. And although All Quiet on the Western Front taught me that even a remake of a fine Best Picture can be worthwhile, musicals don't seem to lend themselves to quite as much flexibility. Still, my parents were intrigued, and a majority of critics and viewers dug it. As long as I was on a recent Oscar nod kick, why not?
In the off chance you don't know the story, it's Romeo and Juliet set in 1950s New York. The Romeo is Tony (Ansel Elgort), semi-reformed co-founder of a non-Hispanic White gang called the Jets, who would have nothing more to do with them if not for the urging of old pal and current Jet leader Riff (Mike Faist). The Juliet is Maria (Rachel Zegler), younger sister of Bernardo (David Alvarez), the latter leading a Puerto Rican gang called the Sharks. Officer Krupke (Brian d'Arcy James) has been doing his best to temper the turf war, but the Jets and Sharks are already on the verge of a scheduled rumble when a mixer brings Tony and Maria together, and their fiery love enhances the fiery hate in others....
To me, the most noticeable difference from the 1961 version is the increase in bilingualism. Maybe a third of the Puerto Ricans' dialogue is in Spanish, with repeated requests to switch to English, even from Bernardo's girlfriend, Anita (Ariana DeBose), who understands it perfectly but values assimilation. The subtitles are not on by default on DVD, but you really don't have to know the language to get the gist. This alteration goes well with the casting of more genuine Hispanic actors. (Some viewers complain that they're not Puerto Rican, but at least they come closer than before.)
There's also a bit more grit, between mild to moderate swearing, slightly more realistic violence, and more obvious innuendo. Both Riff and Bernardo are harder for me to like this time around, because they're more convincingly thuggish. That said, it's PG-13, and you can do only so much to reduce the "badbutt" image of WSS without losing the singing and dancing. Even the fights sometimes resemble ballet.
I noticed only one shift in the lyrics, from "gay" to "bright," with the rhyme switching from "today" to "tonight," presumably because modern culture has rendered that meaning of "gay" all but obsolete. On that note, there is now a transboy (iris menas, an enby insisting on lowercase), who gets no respect for that trait even from a fellow Jet but can give as much trouble as the rest of them. I guess a ragtag bunch of misfits was about the most likely place to find open trans in the '50s.
If you're more interested in what hasn't changed...well, most of it, really. Tony and Maria still fall for each other so fast that even without the enmity of their communities, we wouldn't expect the relationship to last. The music sounds about the same, and the dance moves are recognizable. The plot is basically identical. We do get some nice new cinematography choices, albeit nothing to blow away the original.
Much as I like the remake on its own, I can't help thinking it needs more of a reason to exist. Maybe that's why, for all its cred, it became one of Spielberg's biggest box office disasters. Between this and The Fabelmans, he's really losing his currency.
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