West Side Story

I think this film is really just beautiful. It's so.... everything. Moving, sad, happy, engrossing and of course it's so full of life! The actors portray each and every one of the characters different emotion with such precision and care that its hard to believe they're fictional.

The first cast member to really catch my eye was Natalie Wood, the lead female. At the start, she seems so innocent, cheerful, optimistic and youthful. She also embraces love like a welcome hug- so much so that when her heart gets broken you just want to give her a cuddle! At the end of the film, when all the big events are coming to a head, she seems to grow up a great deal. 

In relation to this character, I think that the female characters portrayed in the Latin culture are much stronger characters than those in the American- I think the Latin characters are portrayed as characters in their own right whereas the American girls just sort of fade into the background, although this is protested slightly in the film I still feel that the Latin girls have much stronger parts.

Another actor that really caught my eye was Richard Beymer, the lead male. He, again, seemed to embrace all the aspects of his character to a massive standard, which I think would be hard considering he has so many different sides. I think it would be hard to portray a character that will be "forever faithful" to the Jets, which he pulls off well, and then to show the love for someone in a rival culture tied in with the guilt he feels at the death of his arch enemy.

I also think that the music in the film is very expressive, and used to a high standard in scenes of high tension and great importance- which I think is an achievement in itself because in a lot of films scenes of this nature rely a lot on dialogue.

I'm finding this film a bit hard to review, really, because I enjoyed literally every aspect of it. The only fault I can find is it feels a bit like a stage show, but that's to be expected because it's adapted from a stage show which was adapted from Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet! It's also not really a fault, because that aspect of it just engrosses me more.