I didn’t tackle this topic yesterday, if anyone has read some of yesterday’s reactions, Spielberg’s “West Side Story” was purposefully made to completely omit the English subtitles during the Spanish spoken scenes.
I was told around 30% of the dialogue is in Spanish. Spielberg wanted to make a much more authentic remake of Robert Wise’s 1961 classic and he seems to have succeeded in doing that; casting Latino actors, having Spanglish uttered in many scenes etc.
Personally, if it doesn’t detract from understanding the story at hand then I don’t really care if no subtitles are used. I was reading some of the comments on Twitter both praising and shaming this choice. If you don't speak the language, you can still understand its meaning through facial expressions and gestures etc.
I’m set to watch “West Side Story” on Thursday. It looks like it could be a bonafide Best Picture nominee, at least based on all these reactions so far.