Chris Pitt

Spielberg's West Side Story - Finger Clicking Good! Anyone who hasn't seen the original West Side Story but loves musicals, dancing, romance or a bit of inter-racial gang warfare will love this. Fans of the original should see it as it updates the Oscar winning classic respectfully and thrillingly, not to mention featuring the original Anita (Rita Moreno) in a salient new role. Contrary to some reviews, I think the two leads (Ansel Eghort and Rachel Zegler) are excellent. Who'd have thought Baby Driver could sing? Zegler's Maria is endearingly naive and nails all her big numbers, including I Feel Pretty. The individual and group renditions of Tonight are stunning. West Side Story is as much about the gangs as it is about Tony and Maria; the film has empathy for both sides - the Jets, young white men born into poverty with no apparent way to escape; the Sharks, Puerto Rican immigrants under attack from racism. Both gangs are being left behind by New York's progress. Mike Faist's Riff, the gaunt epitome of frustrated male fury, and David Alvarez's Bernardo, the proud and angry boxer, are both excellent. Mention too for Ariana De Bose as Anita, carrying her passion with an optimism for the future. The clash of views in the Puerto Rican camp - American hope versus prejudice is stunningly and joyously represented in the show-stopping classic America. The famous finger-clicking of the original features as an ongoing motif, but any thoughts that this is a bunch of dancers having a tiff is nailed (literally, in one case) by the escalating violence. There's no room for sentimentality when the toxic masculinity moves from boys-will-be-boys to something far more unsettling. This is a Romeo and Juliet story, you know how it goes. But Spielberg proves once again that he's our modern day Shakespeare, telling stories that are serious, funny and, in the age of Make America Great Again, very relevant. Go see it!