West Side Story: Why [SPOILER] Has To Die At The End
Based on the Shakespearean tragedy Romeo and Juliet, Steven Spielberg’s West Side Story deviates from the play’s original ending: rather than the two star-crossed lovers dying in an act of double-suicide, only Tony (Ansel Elgort) dies at the end of the film. From the addition of Rita Moreno’s new character Valentina to Anybodys' trans identity, director Spielberg and screenwriter Tony Kushner made some notable improvements to the classic ‘60s musical in their West Side Story remake. Among the various changes is the addition of a backstory for Tony that not only explains his separation from the Jets, but subtly hints why Tony’s tragic death was necessary for the story.
The Montagues and Capulets, the two warring families from Romeo and Juliet, are changed in West Side Story to the Jets and Sharks, two rival gangs who are vying for territory on the streets of Manhattan. While attending a dance, Tony, a former member of the Jets, and Maria (Rachel Zegler), the sister of Sharks leader Bernardo, fall in love in spite of the turf war being waged by their communities. Before Tony and Maria are able to run away together, Tony hears a false report that Chino killed Maria. Deciding death would be preferable to living without her, Tony goes searching for Chino and only learns Maria is still alive moments before Chino kills him. While the original West Side Story has the same ending, the remake suggests that Tony was fated to die.
Unlike Richard Beymer's Tony, Tony never truly escapes his past as a Jet in the remake. When Riff invites Tony to the dance in the original film, Tony acts as if he’s outgrown the gang, suggests the Jets simply “play games” like children, and that he cares more about his job at Doc’s drugstore. In the remake, the hope Tony has for his future disappears, and his past mistakes haunt him. According to Tony’s new backstory, Tony left the Jets after he almost killed a rival gang member and spent the last year in jail. While his jail time allowed him to see the error of his ways, he tells Maria that he feels like he’s still falling. Because Tony continues to gravitate towards the Jets’ conflict with the Sharks, Tony’s murder of Bernardo has him fulfill his unfinished business in the gang, which inevitably leads to his own death at the hands of Chino.
Tony’s death also became inevitable once Tony planned to leave the slums of Manhattan and runaway with Maria, which fate wouldn’t allow to happen. Just as it was foreshadowed that Romeo and Juliet were destined to have a tragic ending when their romance is referred to as “star-crossed,” the Jets receive the same ill-fated omen at the beginning of the West Side Story remake. Lieutenant Schrank tells the Jets that unless they can learn to be civil with the Sharks, they’re doomed to fulfill their ancestors' legacy. Despite Tony’s efforts to escape his circumstances, the legacy he inherited from his ancestors ensured he’d be doomed to remain in the slums, which is why he was fated to die rather than go out west with Maria.
An analysis of West Side Story’s source material Romeo and Juliet can also explain why Tony dies and Maria survives. In the play, the death of Romeo and Juliet was interpreted as a punishment brought about by the heavens that forced their parents to reevaluate the baseless feud between their houses. In West Side Story, the parents are absent, and the feud is instead brought about by racial intolerance. At the end of the film, Maria was likely spared to act as a substitute for the role of Prince Escalus, the prince of Verona who encourages the Montagues and Capulets to end their feud after it caused the pointless deaths of their progeny. Similar to Prince Escalus, Maria becomes the voice of reason who points to Tony’s death as the culmination of the Jets and Sharks’ destructive feud and appeals to them to end their hate.