Batman Returns

Year of release: 1992.                     Directed by Tim Burton.                Starring Michael Keaton, Michelle Pfeiffer, Danny DeVito, and Christopher Walken.

The first (brief) review I wrote of Batman Returns began as follows: “Everything about this film can be explained by simply remembering this is not Batman film, it is not a superhero film, it is a Tim Burton film. And it is a Tim Burton film about three psychopaths with parent issues who costume play while endangering the lives of every resident in Gotham City.”

If you’re wondering who the three psychopaths are, they are Danny DeVito’s Penguin, Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, and Michael Keaton’s Batman. I believe Batman murders four people in this film—two of whom he kills upon his first screen entrance. DeVito’s grunting, grotesque, and strangely sex-starved Penguin with his bizarre revenge plot is the obvious villain, and while Pfeiffer’s sinister Catwoman is a far cry from the sympathetic Selina Kyle of later screen adaptations, her unresolved parent issues and ticking maternal clock make for a perfectly explosive femme fatale to foil both the Penguin and Batman.

While the Penguin is the obvious villain, Christopher Walken’s business mogul Max Shreck rivals him for control of Gotham City in a game of politics where they continually shift between allies and enemies. Have I mentioned that Keaton’s emotionally repressed Batman and Bruce Wayne is barely in this film? It’s vastly superior to Burton’s 1989 Batman for that alone, and the little we see of this stoic caped crusader only serves to reinforce that he’s as unhinged as his two nemeses.

I, and others, have included Batman Returns on the list of great Christmas movies, because it is set completely around Christmas. For a holiday about the Incarnation, reconciliation between heaven and earth, and a time of general peace and good will on earth, a movie about sexually repressed psychopaths with traumatic childhoods taking out their anger and neuroses on an entire city populace as they all navigate a late-stage capitalist hellscape controlled by one equally corrupt, but boringly idiotic, man simply because he has money, may not seem like a normal choice for festive cheer. However, if there ever were an in absentia depiction of a world that needed a savior, this is it.

A later and more beloved film about the Dark Knight calls him the hero we deserve, not the one we need. In Batman Returns, it’s a stretch even to call him a hero. There is a case to be made that Catwoman is the actual hero here given she sacrifices one of her nine literal lives to murder Shreck, and as the character who bears the brunt of capitalism’s oppression, her insanity has the most natural causes behind it. For the record, I would not make that case—this film has no heroes in my book—but while this incarnation of Catwoman is more evil than later ones, it is possible to say she’s more righteous and realistic than any other character.

Pfeiffer delivers the lines of a repressed and rebellious femme fatale with such camp and passion that the psychopathy of all the major characters comes into focus around her. The contrast of her two entrances into her pink, one bedroom apartment so perfectly captures the transformation of a bachelorette longing for partnership with a burned-out bitch determined to screw over those who have made her life hell, which is noted through the changing set design of her bedroom.

Catwoman’s shifting hatred between Shreck and Batman, may seem unreasonable, but as a psychopath, why should she be expected to think reasonably? As she says, “Life’s a bitch, and so am I,” and she sees to it to dish that bitchiness out to anyone who gets in her way. Also, as both Schreck and Batman are two filthy rich capitalists, they are more similar than not. Thankfully, Batman Returns does not have the handwringing over billionaires using their wealth to save a city as Robert Pattinson’s Batman did. Nor does it entertain any questions about Batman being a hero or a villain as Nolan’s trilogy did, despite Keaton’s Batman being one of the most unethical screen versions of the superhero. It takes the comic book conventions at face value and runs with them, along with running with its own bonkers premise—including, but not limited to, the scene where Pfeiffer self-grooms her leather catsuit and deepthroats a parakeet to intimidate the Penguin.

In the age of the MCU and a general cinematic obsession with realism, I cannot begin to describe how refreshing this straightforward, pulpy camp is to watch. From the practically un-choreographed fight sequences to villains randomly pointing guns in the air to everyone pausing to watch the acrobatics of whom they’re fighting, the lack of realism makes this fantasy world a delight. I’m still not sure I’d call this Burton’s best film, although it is unquestionably a contender, but it is without a doubt the most Tim Burton film ever.

There’s something tragically appropriate about a Christmas film calling a corrupt capitalist the Santa Claus of a city, which is how Shreck is introduced. While Santa is a myth with a tangential relationship to the true meaning of Christmas, there is a rite of passage for many children when they learn the truth about Santa and Christmas presents. In Batman Returns, the orphaned Batman, the rejected Penguin, and the estranged Catwoman were all clearly deprived of healthy, formative relationships with their parents, and letting those family tensions erupt over Christmastime at the cost of an entire society is a delightfully campy masterstroke.

Even more fittingly, in a world that needs a savior, or has lost any spirit of Christmas, mistaking capitalist greed for generosity, which the citizens of Gotham do as they lionize Shreck, makes this tragic hellscape all the more quintessentially Burtonesque. The Gotham police’s reliance on Batman is yet another wish for more money to save the day. The commitment to this campy tragedy escalates perfectly until the only way to wake up from the nightmare is to see mommy kissing Santa Claus. And at that point, as innocence is shattered, no amount of presents or money can solve childhood trauma or capitalism’s injustice. So that’s when you get a cat. Merry Christmas.

Personal recommendation: A+

Barbie

Year of release: 2023.     Directed by Greta Gerwig.             Starring Margot Robbie, Ryan Gosling, America Ferrera, Kate McKinnon, Will Ferrell, Michael Cera, and Helen Mirren.

If you saw the first teaser for Barbie, you may have thought the 2001: A Space Odyssey tribute was a one-off gag filmed just to promote the movie. You would have been wrong. Not to spoil the best surprises of the film, but the prologue telling the history of the world from the perspective of the Barbies is both hilarious and an ingenious homage to Kubrick’s masterpiece.

The homage is also thoroughly appropriate given the film’s epilogue where stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) enters a new chapter of her life not at all dissimilar from man’s rebirth as the space child at the end of 2001. To drive the new life idea home, the final line is a funny zinger about the ability to do just that.

What if I also said there’s a “beach off” among the Kens that plays extremely similarly to the pie fight that initially ended Dr. Strangelove? Or a proud proclamation of the same dolls’ identities reminiscent of the most famous line from Spartacus? And what if in fighting the villain of patriarchy, two women communicate mentally, and one of their daughters refers to it as “shining?”

I am convinced there must be more Kubrick references in Barbie, and I’d happily see it again just to catch more of them, but the film delivers on so many other levels as well.

Gerwig and Baumbach’s story does almost nothing that I expected, and while the trailers hinted at similarities with The LEGO Movie, it is very much something different. When stereotypical Barbie discovers her perfect pink world with arched feet and hot, waterless showers falling apart with thoughts of *gasp* death, weird Barbie (Kate McKinnon) informs her she has to travel to the real world and find the child playing with her who has clearly become troubled by something, thus repairing the rift between their two worlds. Stereotypical Barbie just has to choose the Birkenstock over the pink heel, which to be fair, is a choice that not many Barbies would want to make.

If stereotypical Barbie is apprehensive about going to the real world, she is reassured when the other Barbies remind her that the invention of Barbie empowered young girls, letting them know they could be anything they want and not just mothers, and now as a result women hold all positions of power in the real world. And women everywhere will probably want to run up to her and hug her for initiating feminism and fixing all women’s problems.

“At least,” Helen Mirren’s narrator tells us, “That’s what the Barbies believe.” Helen Mirren also delivers my favorite joke in the film, turning an expected breakdown from Robbie’s Barbie into something hilarious, but I’m not spoiling that here.

The slap of cold water that is the real world shocks and appalls stereotypical Barbie while making Ken (Ryan Gosling) feel empowered and respected. A crash course on patriarchy thrills Ken, which he eagerly takes back to Barbieland to inform the other Kens on how they’re supposed to be subjugating the Barbies, riding horses, drinking beer, and watching The Godfather.

As an inverse of the real world’s patriarchal structure, Barbieland is a world where the Kens cannot be president, cannot have Supreme Court appointments, cannot hold high paying jobs, and exist purely for the edification of the Barbies. Since the Ken dolls were created by Mattel to be a companion for Barbie, it’s a very clever twist that demonstrates the toxicity of patriarchy that has plagued the real world for centuries. It reminds me of Aamer Rahman’s comedy bit about reverse racism only being possible with a time machine that would enable Africa to colonize Europe and inflict the abuses on white people that they inflicted on Black people for centuries.

I suppose it needs to be said given the absurd hatred Barbie is generating from right-wing incels for its wokeness, but a film that says we should build a society where women and men are treated equally with equal opportunities is hardly what I’d call woke. Although in a post-MAGA world, general human decency often is woke, so I suppose the label is not wrong, but the film’s basic feminist message is a beautiful thing that would have widely been accepted had not the alt-right gained so much traction in recent years. Nonetheless, the film’s box office success and glowing reviews are reason for hope.

Like Gerwig’s two previous films, Barbie is another example of Graham Greene’s maxim that movies should depict the world as it is and as it should be. While the subject matter here may seem far removed from Lady Bird and Little Women, there is a common thread of hope and decency that celebrates the beauty of love for what is true, noble, and good in the midst of an imperfect world.

Between Barbieland and the real world, there is so much good, and to the extent that the film has any villain at all, it is patriarchy. Patriarchy claims victims of the Kens, the Barbies, America Ferrera’s mother and secretary for Mattel, and Will Ferrell’s CEO of Mattel, who is not a villain copied from The LEGO Movie as the trailers suggested, but a well-meaning executive who wants to help girls and women while not realizing the ways he’s accepted patriarchal norms.

Ferrera’s third act speech that sets up the climax of the movie may be on-the-nose, but it exhibits the same passion a five-year-old girl has for her make-believe land with Barbies, and as a mom reconnecting with that same childhood passion, I thought the speech worked brilliantly.

Several reviews have commented on how Gosling steals the movie, but honestly, Robbie is just as good and gives him an equally clueless character to play off of. The two of them make for a great duo for a road trip movie that takes hundreds of unexpected turns.

Returning to Kubrick, Gerwig and Baumbach wrote a movie about human progress and relationships where our own inventions (patriarchy instead of HAL) plague us and hinder that progress until we can overcome them. It makes the 2001 framing story all the more fitting, and it shows how we can appreciate that journey through an obelisk and light show or a polarizing doll.

Personal recommendation: A-

TÁR

Year of release: 2022. Directed by Todd Field. Starring Cate Blanchett, Nina Hoss, Noémie Merlant, Mark Strong, and Sophie Kauer.

Earlier this year I went to hear the National Youth Orchestra perform their summer program at Carnegie Hall. The program was the Elgar Cello Concerto and Mahler 5. My personal feelings about Elgar aside, the summer academy for those high schoolers yielded amazing results in a concert that culminated in one of the most daunting symphonies ever composed. (Actually, it culminated with an encore medley of E.T. themes, which was a perfect digestif to the concert.)

My personal feelings about Elgar not aside, the only reason to program a work as horrendously boring as his Cello Concerto is to have the audience take a nap so they’re refreshed for the Mahler. (For the record, I do like some Elgar, but he’s a very hit or miss composer for me, and the Cello Concerto is a big miss.)

Lydia Tár (Cate Blanchett in a ferocious performance that’s probably her greatest work yet) presumably does not share my antipathy toward the Elgar Cello Concerto, and thus she chooses to pair it with the Berlin Philharmonic’s recording of Mahler 5 under her baton. However, by the time she selects it, it is clear Lydia has ulterior motives and is trying to groom a young, new cellist who has just joined her orchestra.

Lydia is not a monster from the first scene; indeed, the backstage shots of her taking pills to calm her nerves and being reassured by her assistant before an interview with Adam Gopnik (himself) garners her some sympathy, even if her responses to the interview are a little off-putting and clearly somewhat phony. However, as the film progresses, she becomes more and more unlikeable and the depths of her inhumanity and arrogance become increasingly apparent. That Blanchett maintains our interest in Lydia and what happens to her while also making her so repulsive is a testament to the power of her performance.

Shortly after that interview, Lydia has lunch with a colleague who clearly worships her and then teaches a conducting masterclass at Juilliard. The masterclass takes an interesting turn, when a BIPOC, pangender student insists that they can’t really be into Bach because he was a straight, cis, white man who fathered too many kids.

I’ll be honest, as a professional musician who has reckoned with truly problematic composers and performers, dismissing Bach for those reasons reeks of glib, lazy involvement with one’s art while doing nothing to actually address past and present injustices, and it gives wokism a bad name. (If you want to talk about the anti-Semitism in the St. Matthew Passion and how we reconcile that, or don’t, with current performances, that’s an entirely different question.)

Lydia’s response, however, is even worse. Her tirade humiliates the student and builds on her belief that there is no gender discrimination in classical music, and we should examine all music in a vacuum as if it exists independently of its creator, and the works have no bearing on the lives of their composers.

This is a striking contrast to the opening New Yorker interview where she reverently describes her mentor Leonard Bernstein grappling with the greater context of Mahler 5 and changing his interpretation of it depending on where he was conducting it. In that interview, she insists it’s impossible to conduct Mahler 5 unless you know the details of what was going on in Mahler’s personal life, because that influenced how he composed the symphony.

If this juxtaposition of scenes and attitudes doesn’t reveal Lydia’s hypocrisy and shallowness at first, her later interactions with everyone in her life do. A notable scene for a “blind” cello audition shows Lydia noticing that one auditionee is the attractive young female she saw earlier, because she sees the same shoes beneath the stage curtain. Lydia promptly erases whatever criticism she had written on her form.

According to Lydia’s wife (Nina Hoss), the concertmistress for the Berlin Philharmonic, the only non-transactional relationship Lydia has ever held is with their daughter. And yet, even that relationship is tainted, as Lydia has strict rules the girl must follow. Lydia’s handling of a school bully is nothing short of emotional child abuse, because in her world power and favoritism are how you achieve anything.

TÁR isn’t really a cautionary tale about power corrupting or a feminist who broke glass ceilings and then sealed them over behind herself. It’s a character study of an absolute monster from that monster’s perspective.

If that sounds tiring, or if this review’s focus on Lydia’s unethical behavior makes it seems like she’s an overbearing presence on the film, that couldn’t be further from the truth. It’s a riveting descent into madness by a character who has replaced human interactions with artistic ones, and director Todd Field knows how to punctuate the film with reminders of the humanity Lydia is so lacking.

The film is shot entirely from Lydia’s perspective, and the unreliable narrator trope is brilliantly reflected in the editing. The opening scenes use long takes as Lydia’s confidence in asserting her worldview and her power comes across. As challenges and reckonings to that enter, the film becomes increasingly choppy and disjointed.

The one possible flaw (a second viewing my change my mind) is the final sequence which seemingly comes out of left field, because Lydia has completely lost her mind and her career. I briefly wondered if the last thirty minutes or so all took place in her mind, but I don’t think that interpretation is right.

The final breakdown of Lydia is perfectly filmed and choreographed, drawing from nearly every prominent scene that led to that climax. The hazy tracking shots perfectly reflect Lydia’s nightmares, and earlier exchanges all come to a head there.

In our culture of #metoo and canceling problematic artists, Lydia’s cancellation is a shattering of her world. That shattering is likewise reflected in the quicker editing as a world of abuse falls apart and Lydia loses her accomplishments. To claim that the film shares Lydia’s disdain of cancel culture is not accurate. For one thing, she is an unreliable narrator. More importantly, depiction of an obviously toxic world does not equal an endorsement of that world, and cancel culture is a threat to Lydia’s toxic world.

If Lydia has any real life counterpart, it’s probably James Levine, whom the film name drops by a character who sympathizes with him. While her crimes don’t equal his, and while her cancellation ends up being more severe than his ever was during his life, the question of how does one reckon with art created by monsters permeates the film.

I remember someone once saying “for every ‘separate the art from the artist’ person, there’s a better artist who isn’t a swamp monster.” I sadly disagree. Sometimes, there is a monster who is unparalleled in their artistic ability. (Confession: every time I make a list of who I think the ten greatest directors are, there’s one person I leave off, because I don’t want to entertain the conversation about the quality of his films given the crimes he committed.)

What we do with those monsters and their work is a crucial conversation. The romanticization of the asshole artist has created centuries of abuse and turning a blind eye to countless victims. TÁR is an unflinching depiction of that world, which challenges it through the toll it takes on everyone and everything: the asshole artist, the victims, their colleagues, and the art itself.

It is entirely appropriate that TÁR issues this challenge through the story of a conductor, a profession that has housed countless asshole artists. Even more appropriately, that conductor is on the brink of her career’s pinnacle achievement, and she is a woman who has fully imbibed the toxicity imbued in her profession’s past, a toxicity that at one point would have shut her out.

It’s no secret that conductors have a reputation for being arrogant, and TÁR is an example of that arrogance taken to an 11. If there’s a fine line between tragedy and comedy, it’s the tragic side of one of the most famous musician jokes:

Four conductors were sitting in a bar. Bernstein and Boulez were arguing over who was the greatest conductor. Bernstein insisted it must be him, because he had made more recordings than any other conductor. Boulez countered that he had conducted more of the world’s top orchestras, so he must be the greatest conductor. This went back and forth for some time. Looking to resolve this argument, Kleiber leaned over and said, “Fellows, you’re both wrong. God himself told me I’m the greatest conductor ever.” At which point, von Karajan slammed down his drink and said, “That’s not true, I never said that!”

Personal recommendation: A

The Black Phone

Year of release: 2022       Directed by Scott Derrickson. Starring Mason Thames, Madeleine McGraw, Jeremy Davies, and Ethan Hawke.

“Jesus, what the fuck!?” So prays Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) in front of her cross, rosary, and picture of the Immaculate Conception. What has just become my favorite cinematic prayer occurs roughly two-thirds of the way through Scott Derrickson’s kidnapping mystery and supernatural thriller. At this point, Gwen is beginning to despair of finding her missing brother Finney (Mason Thames) and wonders why God doesn’t interfere to save someone she loves from a looming grisly death.

The age-old question of how does an all-loving, all-powerful God allow bad things to happen is at the heart of Gwen’s character arc. Furthermore, if God interferes and answers her prayers, why didn’t He answer the presumable prayers of the family members of the previous kidnapping and murder victims?

The Black Phone does not provide any easy answers to explain the existence of evil in the presence of an omnipotent deity, but it does suggest where that deity is in the presence of such evil, and that is suffering alongside each and every victim. When Finney becomes the latest kidnapping victim in a string of child disappearances plaguing a Colorado town in 1978, the prayers of Gwen may not be answered in the dramatic fashion she desires, but the aid her brother receives is supernatural.

The blend of supernatural and kidnapping mystery works incredibly well. Derrickson has long proved his expertise at directing supernatural horror with The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Sinister, and Deliver Us from Evil. His decision here to film Gwen’s prophetic dreams as grainy home videos recalling 8 mm film is on the one hand an appropriate flashback to the ‘70s. At the same time, it shows the power of film to transport and inspire (and in this case, save lives) as it shines a light on evil.

Evil is something we all know exists. The evil in The Black Phone is personified by the Grabber (Ethan Hawke, doing fantastic work behind a mask for most of the film). The name of this serial kidnapper makes me think of President “Grab ‘em by the pussy,” and while that is almost certainly a coincidence, given the level of evil that his administration unleashed on the US and the world it is not completely without merit.

While Gwen’s character arc is focused on the divine and saving her brother, Finney’s is focused on survival. That survival comes into play through the titular black phone, which forms a supernatural link between the siblings and the unexpected answer to Gwen’s prayers.

As a Catholic, I believe in the communion of saints. One aspect of that doctrine is that all of us are connected and support one another on our journeys toward salvation, whether we’re alive or deceased. The support that Finney receives in the cellar is from the ghosts of the previous victims of the Grabber, which is probably the answer to his sister’s prayers.

Benevolent ghosts saving the life of one kidnapping victim may seem like a muddling of genres, but it is a mix that Derrickson and the cast handle brilliantly. As Finney, Mason Thames embodies the meek and mild kid who is afraid to stand up for himself and would rather take a beating from bullies and forget about it. The film’s climax where he finally does stand up to ferocious evil is a satisfying triumph of the little guy being exalted. It also comes through the help not only of his friends and sister, but of former bullies as well. It’s a sort of redemption for the bullies as well as the casting down of the ultimate bully.

Crosscut with the exaltation of Finney is the police attempting a rescue mission. This scene blatantly recalls The Silence of the Lambs (and if we’re honest, Jonathan Demme did it better), but it draws the focus to the love between Gwen and Finney as the police become irrelevant. While it may technically be the film’s biggest misstep, the way it highlights the central loving relationship between brother and sister is truly beautiful.

Gwen’s question as to whether Jesus even exists may or may not be answered in The Black Phone. What is answered is how to stand up to evil and whether we receive aid in doing so. That aid may come from the most unexpected places, but whether that aid is divinely inspired or merely the bonds of love between a brother and sister doesn’t make much difference. If one believes God is love, then that is the answer to Gwen’s prayer.

Personal recommendation: A-

West Side Story

Year of release: 2021       Directed by Steven Spielberg. Starring Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, Mike Faist, David Alvarez, and Rita Moreno.

Most stories, and by extension most movies, have three acts. There is an exposition, a series of conflicts leading to a climax, and a resolution. Most stage musicals have two acts. What this necessitates is the end of act one being the climax, an eleven-o’clock number to keep the second act moving, and a finale that in most other stories would have come sooner. Some musicals work around this problem brilliantly; the climax that ends act one of Gypsy paves the way for the even more devastating finale of act two. The Phantom smashing the chandelier leads to his sabotaging an opera production with his literal presence. And the rumble that ends act one of West Side Story takes an entire second act to deal with the repercussions.

However, most films no longer have intermissions, and placing the dramatic climax at the halfway point of the narrative arc obviously does not work for a continuous two or two-plus hour story. It’s a problem for adapting musicals from stage to screen that Joel Schumacher tried unsuccessfully to work around in his 2004 The Phantom of the Opera, that Rob Marshall more or less succeeded with his 2014 Into the Woods, and one that Spielberg and Tony Kushner solve brilliantly in 2021’s West Side Story.

When I first heard Spielberg was adapting West Side Story, my thoughts were: 1) why can’t he adapt a musical that’s never received a silver screen treatment before? 2) the 1961 film is pretty good, and while there is obvious room for improvement, do we really need a new one? 3) will this be an adaptation of the stage show, or the 1961 film? While I’d still like to see Spielberg tackle a musical that’s never been filmed, the answer to 2) is a resounding yes, largely because the answer to 3) is that he adapted the stage show, not the older film.

I am one of the few West Side Story fans that I know of who vastly prefers the original order of “Cool” and “Gee, Officer Krupke,” and not the 1961 film’s switching of them. For one thing, there is too much tension and anger in the music of “Cool” for it to be a song about calming down after the rumble, and the flippant irreverence of “Gee, Officer Krupke” flows naturally from the rumble into the finale, continuing the cycle of violence.

When I checked the soundtrack listing, I was very pleased to see “Cool” was before the rumble in Spielberg’s West Side Story. I was less pleased to see it was sung by Tony (Ansel Elgort) to Riff (Mike Faist). However, that decision works fantastically. And even if it didn’t, the dance sequence that’s choreographed between Tony and the Jets over the gun that will ultimately end Tony’s life is so spectacular to behold that I would have forgiven the decision had it not worked.

The angular, tritone dominated melody of “Cool” allows it to work in this new context, because it now serves as a futile warning from Tony to Riff, much in the same way that Tony’s famous tritone dominated love song “Maria” indicates the love between the two leads is doomed.

As to “Gee, Officer Krupke” taking place before the rumble, the necessity of reducing the amount of time between the rumble and the finale makes perfect sense for a film. As such, having it take place as part of the leadup to the rumble works great.

Maria’s (Rachel Zegler) big solo “I Feel Pretty” takes place immediately following the rumble. In the stage show, it opens act two. Since Spielberg and Kushner reduced the amount of time between the rumble and the finale, here it opens what would be considered act three of the film. I loved its placement for so many reasons (the 1961 film moved it to pre-rumble, because it was thought to jarring to sing post-rumble). For one thing, the power of the music to begin a new section of the story is in keeping with the way the song was written. Secondly, hearing it immediately after watching two young adults murdered maintains the tragic nature of Maria and Tony’s romance as well as Maria’s disconnect from what just happened.

The other big solo that takes place post-rumble is “Somewhere.” In keeping with the stage show, it’s not a love duet between Tony and Maria (their love duet is in the first act), but a broken plea for a world that is better than the one we have. I won’t spoil who sings it (although it’s pretty easy to guess), but it was a classic Spielberg tear-jerker moment in the best possible sense.

While Spielberg’s West Side Story takes place in the late ‘50s/early ‘60s, he makes the cultural divide feel as present as if it took place today. Much has been made of his decision to leave the frequent Spanish speaking unsubtitled, and while it’s not particularly newsworthy if one is familiar with his other films, it does make the culture of the Sharks feel as natural and quintessentially American as that of the Jets.

The performances are uniformly excellent. Ariana DeBose impressed me in The Prom last year, and she’s even better here. Anita’s casual starting of “America” and having it turn into a showstopper only makes her later anger and hatred all the more relatable. Spielberg gets what is easily my favorite performance from Elgort; Zegler is a good soprano, and one role in particular provides the heart to the tragic story.

One of my favorite aspects of Bernstein’s score for West Side Story is the way he takes the love duet and turns it into part of the rumble quintet. It musically weaves together the anger, passion, hatred, and love of all the characters. Spielberg’s setting of it includes a dose of religion, sex, guns, tribal associations, idealism, and youthful confidence. It’s as if he saying this story is not just for the west side of Manhattan, but all of America. It’s all there in Sondheim’s lyrics, but Spielberg’s realization of it is what makes this a masterclass in musical adaptation.

Personal recommendation: A