Everybody knows the tale of Romeo & Juliet. The famous love story about two teenagers from feuding houses falling for each other but being torn apart by their families quarrelling which resulted in both of their deaths is easily one of the most recognisable of William Shakespeare’s work. With a tragic timeless elements along with themes and familiar tropes that would become popular with Shakespeare’s work, it is the tale that is often utilised the most in other works of media for the ‘’tragic love-story’’ genre.  While there have been several adaptations of the original story, its also been readjusted into other films that use the story as a tool for its own framework. Arguably the most famous film to do this, as well as the one that became known for it, was West Side Story. This musical created by Arthur Laurents which placed the story of Romeo & Juliet in the mid-1950s in the streets of New York City, was a very well received production that became known as one of the most famous musical of all time. Inevitably, a film version was created and released in 1961, starring tons of famous names, directed by the famous Robert Wise, and became one of the highest grossing movies of the year in the US. In the streets of New York, two gangs are always at odds with each other; the white American Jets, and the Puerto Rican Sharks. Obviously heated towards each other over certain racial problems, the two sides can never find common ground with each other until two from opposite sides catch eyes on each other at a school dance, previous Jet member Tony (played by Richard Beymer) and sister of the lead Shark, Maria (played by Natalie Wood). While the two fall for each other, both are aware of the consequences that could come falling down on them when their sides discover their forbidden passion. For a cinematic version of the musical, the film seems to capture the original sources high and low points effectively.

The story is pretty obviously known as a somewhat retelling of the original Shakespearean love story but utilising a different time period, location, and style in order to create its own spin on a classic tale. This idea has a lot of potential to branch itself out into brand new territory and fully become its own thing, and it looks like that’s what it’s doing for the most part. The opening parts of this movie are clear in reference to the story but exists as its own thing strongly enough that a lot of the familiar moments don’t feel too forceful and unnatural. The last third is where that becomes much more of a problem; with scenes lacking a lot of weight and feeling not only because of the pre-knowledge of what is to come, but also because these story-beats don’t match with the film’s set-up universe. The original story was a tragic story that shows the consequences of when young lover isn’t allowed to be explored in a healthy manner and the story mirrored that in how it was paced and presented. Here the last act only features these selects because they were done in the original story, not because they are effectively built up within their own world. The story of the film doesn’t update enough from the original story to suspend a lot of disbelief in some of their choices. Their reasoning for hating each other is pretty shallow, the two lovers falling in love doesn’t feel as effective without going through with the full aftereffects, and this lack of progress really shows in that final act where it stops being its own thing and more like a retelling of Romeo and Juliet.

The characters also suffer a similar issue in regard to not being updated heavily enough to stand out as their own creations, yet also suffer from something more crucial than that. Both of the film’s gangs are not only cartoonishly generic with their attitudes and language, but their feud does not feel justified or fully felt in the slightest. The original story gave no reasoning, but it came with the time period, here they started to sew the seeds of a legitimate realistic reasoning with racism, but it never goes further than that and that’s not enough. Because of this, both sides are packed with really generic unlikeable characters and doesn’t let us sympathise with either; the Jets are deemed mentally ill yet it’s never treated seriously and is packed with nothing by angsty teen jerks, and the Sharks are given the racism argument yet still act as arrogantly as the other side. Thankfully the two leads are given equal amounts of time and thankfully they are far easier to be around. Both are acted very well; both are home to a lot of nice songs even if they’re dub and both are very likeable to be around and even share half-decent chemistry when the film gives them time together. The only real two likeable side characters are Anita played by Rita Moreno and Anybodys played by Susan Oakes, who are at least given realistic likeable personalities that the movie allows to show them off in a normal environment.

The star of the film is easily the music. The original songs created by famed songwriter Stephen Sondheim make-up a lot of the story’s best moments and arguably helped give this musical a lot more of an identity because of it. Removing the music would leave the movie, and the play for that matter, essentially being a shallow different time-piece Romeo & Juliet, but with the adage of musical, it gives the environment much more of an identity. It gives the overall experience an over-the-top sense to it that means it never feels like it is trying to be realistic and allows the performers to be a bit more over-the-top in their roles. The songs themselves featured a lot of energy and passion behind its music; the melodies are nice and energetic while also being old-fashioned sounding as well as unique, the lyrics aren’t always the most engaging and sometimes it leads to the overall dialogue feeling unnatural and weird, but overall they work okay, and even if they don’t technically tell the story, some of the best songs are the ones that don’t contribute anything plot wise. ‘’America’’, ‘’Gee, Officer Krupke’’, and ‘’I Feel Pretty’’ are pretty fun numbers on their own and even some of the gang songs aren’t really that bad. Weirdly enough, the love duets aren’t anything that special and blend together a lot more than usual, but they aren’t terribly made, just less impressive. The staging for the song numbers is very tight, filled with motion and perfectly paced with the great camera work that captures that great in-between of feeling like a stage-show in presentation, but with enough usage of the larger space and cinematic cinematography to keep it from feeling like its old platform.

West Side Story is considered by many to be one of the most iconic movie musical of all time because of effortlessly it took the transition from stage to screen and on the surface level, that notion is not false. Despite how it functions and flows mostly like a stage-show, it doesn’t usually come across as such throughout the running time which is also packed with a lot of great song numbers, nice camera work, solid acting and an overall entertaining experience. Its true that the story could have used more updates to not only be its own thing, but also improve upon a lot of the original’s less-than-timeless aspects. That along with the less-than-engaging third act keep this movie from being amazing, but it’s an overall good sit through that’s good a lot of fun things about it. Check out this musical classic for yourself and see for yourself how much you want to see these two sides rumble tonight.