We returned to life yesterday. Just for the afternoon. We went to the cinema. That place people used to go to to see films before Covid invented Netflix. We had to. Some things are just an imperative. Like, f’rinstance, if one of the most fab films ever, like West Side Story, was re-made, perhaps, by someone spectacular like, say, Steven Spielberg. Then I’d go.

And we did. We went in the afternoon because we thought it would be quieter. And it was. Just about 15 of us. So we sat at the back and un-masked. Because you’re allowed to if you’re eating popcorn. Or if you have been eating popcorn recently. Or if you think you might at some point like to eat popcorn. So no rules broken there then.

And the movie. Ahhhhh, the movie. Pretty much what you’d expect except rather disappointing. Not as much as ‘The Lost Daughter’, that would be tragic. That suffered from a fab cast given the wrong things to do. West Side Story gives the wrong cast the right things to do.

The sets, as you’d expect from the absolute master director, were magnificent. The music possibly the best musical score ever. The colour, the choreography, both dancing and fighting, simply wonderful. Yet the cast just lacked… star quality. Its a film about gangs. Tough guys. Gang leaders. Charismatic. People falling in love at first glance. For that to happen you need… something more than you get. The star role is Tony. The de facto leader of the Jets, just out of prison, so Riff runs the show. Because he’s ‘real tough’. A real ‘troublemaker’. Whereas he looks and sounds like a ballerina. I really have no issues at all about camp men. I just don’t think they make the most convincing thugs. Tony is different. He’s supposed to ‘smoulder’ but instead just turns up an Elvis-esque lip-curl and dissolves into a puddle of wetness. Neither could sing worth a shit. “When you’re a Jet you’re effete…”

Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks, at least looked capable of throwing a punch without bursting into tears. His sister, Maria (Maria, Maria, MARIIIII-AAAHHH, I just met a girl called…) was cute and lovely and had a good voice. But in an operatic way, which is NOT West Side Story. The pick of the bunch was the Anita character. She was fabulous in every way as Bernardo’s babe.

And there was a little old lady, Tony’s mum, who never appeared in the 1961 original (and totally definitive version, I’m afraid). And she was good. And played, I found out later, by Rita Moreno, who had played Anita in the original movie. And I loved that. Very Spielberg thing to do. Continuity. Magical. Shame about the rest of the cast.

Happy movie-going Monday

A xxxx