Why ‘In the Heights’ and ‘West Side Story’ Might End Up Defining 2021

Back in 1961 people still went to the movies. It wasn’t that it was the best year for film, or that the Academy picked the best five films for Best Picture – but the film they DID pick was an exceptional work of art. And that film was West Side Story. The movies that still resonate from that year include The Misfits, La Dolce Vita (nominated for Best Director), Breakfast at Tiffany’s, Splendor in the Grass, A Raisin in the Sun, and, of course, The Hustler.

The Best Picture nominees that year were:

West Side Story (won Best Picture and ten out of its 11 noms)
Judgment at Nuremberg (won Screenplay and Actor out of its 11 noms)
The Hustler (Won Art Direction + Cinematography out of its 9 noms)
Fanny (Won Zero of its 5 noms)
Guns of Navarone (won Visual Effects out 7 noms)

West Side Story topped the box office that year. Rock Hudson, trapped in the closet, drew audiences with two films topping the box office, Lover Come Back with Doris Day and Come September with Sandra Dee. La Dolce Vita somehow brought in the crowds. And comedies like The Parent Trap and the Absent-Minded Professor were popular with families. A religious epic King of Kings was popular that year, along with the family friendly 101 Dalmatians. El Cid and the Guns of Navarone rounded out the box-office top ten.

Natalie Wood starred as Maria in West Side Story – which today would be called “Brown Face” and for sure would be disallowed. Spielberg’s version changes that dynamic from the original. They wanted a star in 1961, and they got Natalie Wood who is simply brilliant in the film regardless.

In 1961, America was coming out of the utopian 1950s and headed towards the cultural revolution of the 1960s. JFK had just beaten Richard Nixon and had ushered in a Camelot – the beginning of how the boomer generation would influence culture up until Obama’s rise in 2008. But West Side Story takes place before the Civil Rights movement, the feminist and anti-war revolution of the late 1960s. The south was still segregated, and America was about to radically change. It had one foot in the 1950s and one foot in the 1960s. But it’s about tribalism. It is about division. It is about racism. And about a country that must try to find a way to get along.

West Side Story is a modern take on Romeo and Juliet, which means two warring sides that hate each other have 2 young individuals who fall in love anyway. The result is street fighting and ultimately tragedy. In 2021, we are not living in a time of unity. We are living in a time of extreme hatred, division, and cold virtual civil war. That makes West Side Story somehow quite timely. I do not know how Spielberg is planning to update the divisions, whether they will remain in the past or whether they will be updated to today, but a 2021 version might have a Trump Supporter and a Black Lives Matter activist falling in love. Either way, the vibe of the film is very much appropriate for this year.

By contrast, In the Heights isn’t that movie. It is every bit as sumptuous and lovely as West Side Story, but its message is not about division. It is not about racism or oppression. Rather, it is about an immigrant community finding love and making America their home. It is basically if this song sung by Rita Moreno was expanded into a whole movie.

In a perfect world, Chu’s In the Heights would have been that movie that brought people out from far and wide to the movies. But it was released at the wrong time. Not just because COVID was keeping people out of theaters but because its upbeat message was hard to latch onto for its target audience. There wasn’t enough fury in it, not enough anger. Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Hamilton has the same problem resonating right now. It is often met with a sneer by the social justice set for ignoring racism. The “antiracist” movement doesn’t believe in color-blind casting. And yet, almost all of what you see as Hollywood’s remedy to the charges of racism is exactly that: color-blind casting. That can sometimes be distracting if we’ve been given a certain toolkit of how we are supposed to process race and racism in movies.

Miranda is someone whose parents came from Puerto Rico, which is the community that represents one side in West Side Story. In the Heights is about Washington Heights – it is about celebrating the diversity of the melting pot so close to his heart.

But make no mistake – it is not an angry screed about the Land of Opportunity but rather a celebration of it. He has been targeted this past year for a variety of things that simply would not have existed back in 1961. Back then, only box office determined success. To make money, movies had to be greater than great or appeal to every audience quadrant. Both the original West Side Story and In the Heights are films that really celebrate the best of what musicals offer. The players had to be able to do it all – sing, dance, act. Now, of course, the casting also has to be “Twitter approved.”

Spielberg’s update for West Side Story might resonate with the anger of division of the moment more than In the Heights. It is one of only a handful of films that look to be sight-unseen contenders in this, the second year of Hollywood trying to piece itself back together again. In the Heights, however, has a universal joyfulness about it that will eventually find its place in film history the same way the original West Side Story did. That movie offered a glimpse into a world American audiences had not seen. In its own way, it helped to mend the division in the neighborhood where the two factions battled each other.

We don’t yet know what films will come to define 2021, either at the box office or at the Oscars. But the Academy is finding itself at an inflection point. It simply can’t continue to exist inside a bubble. Hollywood, if it wants to survive, will have to find a way to start making films that reach more than just those who live in New York and Los Angeles. Their target audience should not necessarily be China’s box office, especially since they aren’t exactly amenable to American exports of late. But also because this country needs movies too. Movies that take us somewhere beyond indulging in superhero fantasies.

At first it looked like the hive mind on Film Twitter was preparing to pit In the Heights against Spielberg’s West Side Story. How surprising it was, then, that In the Heights was targeted instead and now has the albatross of having done something “wrong.” Which is absurd. If anything, I think West Side Story will reignite In the Heights as we compare the two films side by side and be appreciative that we have a year where both of these movies were made.

This year might be a great reset for Hollywood. Maybe it will be a wake-up call too. Maybe it will be a reminder that criticizing and dissecting and policing art and the artists who create it makes for a boring, sanitized industry and Oscar season.