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Starring: Ansel Elgort, Rachel Zegler, Ariana DeBose, David Alvarez, Mike Faist, Josh Andrés Rivera, Ana Isabelle, Corey Stoll, Brian d’Arcy James, Rita Moreno
OUR RATING: ★★★½
Story:
Movie adaption of the hit 1957 Broadway musical directed by Steven Spielberg. West Side Story (2021) follows teenagers Tony and Maria (Ansel Elgort and Rachel Zegler), who fall in love despite being affiliated with rival gangs, the Jets and Sharks, in 1950s New York City.
Read the review of the 1961 movie here.
Our Favorite Quotes:
'I'm always just about to fall off the edge of the world's tallest building. I stopped falling the second I saw you.' - Tony (West Side Story) Click To Tweet
Best Quotes
Lieutenant Schrank: I realize if any of you helps me out, you might spoil your chance to murder each other over control of this earthly paradise.
Balkan: The Jets control it and you know it.
Lieutenant Schrank: Yeah, but, golly gee, Balkan, not according to the New York City Committee for Slum Clearance, which has decided to pull this whole hellmouth down to the bedrock, and you’re in the way.
Lieutenant Schrank: Work with me, fellas. Or they’re going to drive you off your turf.
Riff: You said it was the Slum Clearance Committee that was driving us off, now it’s the PRs. You got to get your story straight, Lieutenant Schrank. We’re very impressionable.
Lieutenant Schrank: What’s a gang without its terrain, its turf? You’re a month or two away from finding out, one step ahead of the wrecking ball. And in this uncertain world, the only thing you can count on is me. I’m here to keep the civil peace until the last building falls. And if you boys make trouble on my turf, Riff, hand to heart, you’re headed to an upstate prison cell for a very long time. By the time you get out, this will be a shiny new neighbourhood of rich people in beautiful apartments, with Puerto Rican doormen to chase trash like you away.
Riff: [moviequotesandmore.com] I got a question for you, Lieutenant. How tall did you used to be before you, you know, “schrank”?
Riff: I’m thinking it’s past time for a rumble. For a all-in, all-out, once and for all, winner takes all, high-noon shootout at the OK Corral rumble!
Balkan: Wild blue yonder! About time!
Riff: Schrank doesn’t know his a** from his elbow. Look, Tony and me started the Jets. None of us would even be here if it wasn’t for all of us. And all you know it.
Tony: You don’t need me helping you screw up your life.
Riff: You know how I get. I will start running my mouth. You got command. You are West Side legendary! And, Tony. Tony, the Jets. I gave them my word you’d show.
Tony: Why would you do that?
Riff: Because it’s a rumble! We need you if we’re going to war. You can’t refuse us now. And because I know you. Or I thought I did, before you got all unlike yourself, before you went upstate.
Tony: [referring to Valentina] She gave me a job and a place to stay. She’s always been there for me, like nobody else. So don’t call her…
Riff: Oh, nobody, huh? Thanks, pal. Thanks a big fat lot.
Tony: You know I didn’t mean you wasn’t there. You was always there. Womb to tomb.
Riff: Sperm to worm.
Tony: The Jets are the greatest. And you, you’re like, you know, blood to me. But I’m scared of myself, Riff. What I done to that kid. What I almost done.
Riff: You got to get over that. What is the point in beating yourself up?
Tony: I want to be unlike how I was. Because I was disappearing down a sewer, and taking you and everything with me.
Tony: I had time. Lots of it. Locked up like that, and for the first time ever, I took a look inside. And that was rough, doing that. But I got to stay with myself. You know what I mean? Maybe stay, by myself, just for…
Riff: Yeah, you know what? You’re just too deep for me, kid. You know, I don’t know who I am. And who cares who I am? Nobody, including me.
Riff: [to Tony] I know that this dust that’s covering everything right now, that’s the four-story buildings that was standing here when you went upstate a year ago. You know, I wake up to everything I know either getting sold, or wrecked, or being taken over by people that I don’t like. And they don’t like me. And you know what’s left out of all that? The Jets. My guys. My guys, who are just like me. Who are just like you.
Valentina: [moviequotesandmore.com] Tony, wake up. I know you love Riff, but he hates Puerto Ricans. That is not you.
Tony: Riff don’t hate you.
Valentina: I married a gringo. He thinks that makes me a gringa, which it don’t. And I ain’t.
Valentina: [to Tony] Keep looking for better, mi milagro. Like you always done.
Maria: In Gimbels, there are lots of dresses that fit me.
Anita: And you don’t shop in Gimbels. You clean in Gimbels.
'Life matters, even more than love.' - Valentina (West Side Story) Click To Tweet
Anita: Bernardo will be so mad if we make him late. And I want to dance.
Maria: Bernardo’s always mad.
Maria: The boys think I’m a kid.
Anita: You are a kid, kiddo.
Chino: Let me join the Sharks.
Bernardo: Ay, muchacho, not this again.
Chino: Por favor, let me help you protect our people.
Bernardo: No. You keep out of that. It’s stupid. We got to do it, but it’s stupid.
Chino: Maria can’t like a lambeojo who just works day and night. Never stands up like her brother does.
Bernardo: She says all the time she doesn’t want anyone like me. Just be Chino. But be a Chino who dances.
Anita: [moviequotesandmore.com] Chino is going to be rich.
Chino: Well, not exactly, pero.
Bernardo: Boxers get rich.
Maria: Boxers get their brains knocked out.
Bernardo: The gringos tonight, they stare because…
Anita: Oh, like you don’t stare.
Bernardo: Because our girls make their girls look lousy.
Bernardo: [to Maria] The first gringo boy who smiles at you…
[imitates punching]
Tony: It’s funny, I wasn’t planning on showing up tonight.
Maria: You don’t like dancing?
Tony: No. I mean, yeah. I like it. I like it a lot, dancing with you. It’s just you’re…
Maria: You’re tall.
Tony: Yeah, I know. You’re not.
Maria: You’re not Puerto Rican?
Tony: You’re just figuring that out?
Maria: From down here, I wasn’t sure.
Tony: Is that okay? That I’m not?
Maria: I don’t know.
Tony: [as Maria tries to kiss him] I’m sorry. You just caught me by surprise, is all. I’m a by the book type, so.
Maria: By the book?
Tony: Try me again.
[they start to kiss]
Anita: [to Tony after he and Maria are caught together] Do you want to start World War Three?
'When love comes so strong, there is no right or wrong. Your love is your life.' - Maria, Anita (West Side Story) Click To Tweet
Bernardo: Why should we play on the playground with a bunch of…?
Riff: Control of your territory, that’s what you get. We keep clear out of your way, you’re Jet-free. If you win. We win, you see us coming, and we will keep coming, you Sharks make like the rats and skedaddle.
Tony: Can I come up?
Maria: No.
Tony: But I found you.
Maria: Please. My brother’s so angry now, he might…
Tony: I’ll make him like me. Everybody does.
Maria: There’s nobody who everybody likes.
Tony: Yeah, but so long as you like me, I’m okay with that.
Maria: [moviequotesandmore.com] Now, please go, or something bad will happen if you…
Tony: Run away with me. I’m serious. Don’t laugh.
Maria: Si, serious. Maybe tomorrow I’ll run away with you.
Tony: Tomorrow? Deal.
Maria: See you tomorrow, Tony.
Tony: You promise me?
Maria: What?
Tony: You got to see me tomorrow. Nobody else. Only me.
Trailer: