A really boring, surface level exploration of one of the more interesting musical figures of the 20th century. It makes the classic biopic mistake of retelling the subject’s life through bullet points instead of providing a unique artistic perspective or insight. The writing is so flat and just doesn’t seem to get at the heart of anything that could be memorable, which is strange because there’s potentially so much to work with. I’d welcome a movie that gave us a look into Bernstein’s artistic process/contributions or outspoken, opinionated mind, but so much of this feels like a calculated vanity project for Bradley Cooper. Carey Mulligan is the only one who completely disappears into her role in a way that feels authentic, because the other performers are a little too eager to ham it up for Academy Awards voters. You can tell Cooper did a lot of research for his role, but there’s something about his performance that feels phony and too studied. Thankfully he does a better job in the director’s chair, because in terms of visuals, editing and staging this is an improvement over _A Star is Born_. The score is often pompous and overblown (not counting the conducting scenes, of course), but I’ll give him a pass on that one because we’re dealing with a classical composer here. He even occasionally flirts with subjective abstractions (e.g. the scenes that refer back to the silent film era), however in the grander scheme of things those moments feel isolated and disconnected from the rest of the film. It’s strange how you can always feel his adventurous spirit behind the camera, but the movie as a whole never stops feeling like hollow Oscar bait. Compared to a movie like _Tár_ there’s a strong argument to be made how writing fiction can loosen the creative restraint for a writer. Because of that I honestly don’t get why there’s still such a strong emphasis on the biopic in awards circles, and no movie from 2023 exemplifies that better than _Maestro_.

4/10

Maestro (2023) was easily my favorite of these three films, perhaps because of my previous familiarity with Leonard Bernstein’s works (like West Side Story and Candide). Loosely following Bernstein’s (Bradley Cooper) career from his first big conducting gig at age 25, the movie is much more interested in Bernstein’s relationship to his wife, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), and his complicated personal life as a queer man. This is to the movie’s benefit, as Bernstein’s career provides a rich backdrop to the tension that quietly grows in, around, and between members of his family. Early on, Felicia tells Leonard that she sees him for who he is, and that she is ok with it. They appear to have an agreement where he can seek out the pleasures he pleases; Felicia seems to agree to sharing. But when Leonard gets more overt with his transgressions, and the tide turns from sharing to being forgotten, Felicia understandably takes issue with what the status quo has become. The tension simmers in near silence – with the occasional verbose explosion – as Leonard refuses to formally reconcile until it is too late.

Serving as lead actor and director to this production, Bradley Cooper does a phenomenal job in his portrayal of Bernstein. Though there has been some backlash about the prosthetic work done to improve his likeness to the real Bernstein, the hair and makeup team on this movie deserve a huge amount of accolades for their accomplishments here (confirmed by their own Academy Award nomination); not only do they transform Cooper’s face, but they also subtly (and then all at once) age both Cooper and Mulligan across the decades of their relationship with work that is utterly convincing. The actors (again, both nominated for Academy Awards in their respective categories) take the transformative tools that they have been given and use them to craft performances that are entirely gripping; a Thanksgiving Day argument between the two is so real that it’s almost tempting to turn away out of embarrassment for having witnessed something so private. The screenplay and direction of its delivery are reflective of lifelike conversation – characters talk over one another, cut one another off, and quickly interject, and while this can get overwhelming, so can real conversations. It smudges the sheen of perfection that a lot of dialogue tends to have, and instead opts to lean into the imperfect mess that real communication can become, especially when love is involved. In a nice touch of stylistic intent, just like the makeup and the performances reflect the passing time, so to do the visual period pastiches – the film moves from a 4:3 aspect ratio in black and white to a widescreen format in full color, reflecting the film style of the time, and earning another Academy Award nomination for Best Cinematography.

[7.4/10] *Maestro* is an upscale version of musical biopics like *Bohemian Rhapsody*--stately but standard--with a few fascinating artistic flourishes. Most of the time the film’s lookback on the life and times of Leonard Bernstein chugs along exactly as you’d expect. There are stretches of writerly dialogue where the characters philosophize in overly direct ways, actorly monologues that look good on an Oscar reel, and the artist’s trajectory that has become all but standardized in the years since *Ray* and *Walk the Line*. But every once in a while, the film does something tremendous, that justifies sitting through the other ninety percent of the time when it merely does what’s expected.

Some of its creative choices are clever, but well-established. The way the movie’s aesthetic mirrors the time depicted in this ongoing period piece is smart, including a transition from black-and-white into color, in line with producer Martin Scorsese’s approach in *The Aviator*. Likewise, the most striking part of the film’s first act are its dreamlike transitions between scenes, that bend reality but convey the dizzying rush of youthful passion, in a way that's precedented to the point of homage, but still an effective cinematic tool.

But in the film’s first creative climax, it jettisons the off-the-shelf biopic playbook, and indulges in an extended musical sequence that both pays homage to Bernstein’s contributions to *On the Town* while realizing the tumult of Leonard’s relationship with his soon-to-be wife, Felicia, in flourishing, impressionistic tones. The sense of artistry on display, in not just the song and dance, not just the swirling cinematography, but also in the use of this off-kilter method to convey the fraught dynamic between the movie’s two central figures, makes it an undeniable highpoint.

The other comes in a climactic second act crescendo that sees Bernstein give a spirited, furious conducting performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony. Director/co-writer Bradley Cooper stars as Bernstein and, in large part, gives the undeniably well-done but rarely convincing performance of a real life figure that is typical of music biopics. He certainly commits to the part (aided by some rightfully controversial but also genuinely impressive prosthetics and old age makeup). But in line with the film's larger pathology, ninety percent of the time he comes off as doing a ton of capital-A acting, that is recognizable as full of craft and big choices, but rarely seems like he’s truly inhabiting Bernstein and disappearing into the role.

The exception, ironically, is arguably the moment he plays the biggest. Bernstein’s conducting of Mahler is riveting for Cooper’s intensity, for how he, cinematographer Matthew Libatique, and editor Michelle Tesoro stick to long unbroken shots to let the force of Bernstein’s movements wash over the audience without flash or cinematic varnish. One of the trickiest things in music biopics is convincingly portraying the actor as “doing the thing.” Most musicians worthy of story and song possess an incredible talent. That doesn’t always translate when interpreted by another performer. But in Cooper’s rendition of his subject’s Ely Cathedral triumph, you understand the intensity and magnetism of Bernstein as an artist in a way the film strains to tell you rather than show you elsewhere.

The other extraordinary part of *Maestro* is simply the performance of Carey Mulligan as Felicia. She’s subject to the same paint-by-numbers biopic material Cooper is, but does a considerably better job of elevating what she’s given. The simple changes in her expression as she looks on at her husband’s art and antics are softly masterful. An overwritten monologue about blushing over an erstwhile date only to realize she’s repeating old patterns amid her separation from her husband is made heartbreaking in Mulligan’s rendition of a woman straining to keep herself together through it. And Felicia’s third act’s cancer-ridden deterioration could come across maudlin or cheap from a lesser actor, but in Mulligan’s capable hands, it plays as devastatingly real.

That final degradation of illness becomes the cinch of the film’s interesting themes. *Maestro* trafficks in a lot of trite questions of “Can an artist have it all? Do they *need* to engage in questionable or dangerous behavior to fuel their output?”. The film, however, offers a couple of interesting, less traditional answers. The first is that while Bernstein believes the “summer in him” necessary to spur his musical creations comes from his dalliances and spotlight-stealing gregariousness, in the end it’s his connection with Felicia, however staid or fraught, that's as important to his musical fire and fulfillment as the more adventurous part of his life, something put into relief as he begins to lose her.

The way this epiphany mirrors Felicia’s own realization that she can only bear so much of being second in her husband’s life, subordinating herself to his art, looking the other way for his dalliances, while also realizing that she needs him, gives the film some depth in its ideas even as its presentation of them checks all the usual prestige picture boxes with workmanlike efforts.

The second is the idea expressed in Leonard and Felicia’s first meeting -- that the two of them are composites, not just of pieces of their upbringing, but of the seemingly incompatible parts of their lives. In the context of the film, Leonard genuinely loves Felicia and the traditional family they’ve built together, but he’s no less pulled by his attraction to various men in his life, and the bog standard “drugs and debauchery” period all musicians have to go through on the silver screen. The willing to engage in Bernstein’s bisexuality in an unflinching way is to its credit. And the notion that who the Bernsteins are as people -- as artists and spouses and wildchilds and parents -- are inextricable, is a more nuanced take on the “What makes an artist?” question than the movie’s well-crafted but generic presentation of its ideas might suggest.

That's the funny thing about *Maestro* -- much, arguably most of it, isn’t worth talking about. Almost everything in the film is undeniably well done, but often comes off spiritless, like the latest shiny piece to come off Hollywood's musical biopic assembly line. This sense of Cooper’s work as the kind of film *Walk Hard* famously pilloried abides in the film’s rush of years for Felicia and Leonard, and there’s even a touch of a *Shakespeare in Love* here, with unsubtle connections drawn between the events of Bernstein’s life and the compositions he produced, as they’re used to score the film.

But in a few key places, and a few key ways, *Maestro* makes some daring, even avant garde choices that make it a little more than the standard cinematic portrait of the artist as a young man. In those scant but scintillating moments, there’s a glimpse at the greatest artistry possible even in an overdone form, and of the brilliance and broken pieces of the musician *Maestro* is so desperate to lionize and humanize.

Other than knowing it was directed by and starred Bradley Cooper, I went into this completely blind, to the point that I wasn't even aware that it was biopic until 20 minutes before the showtime and I certainly had no preexisting knowledge about Leonard Bernstein. But having quite enjoyed Cooper's first directorial effort (_A Star is Born (2018)_), I was still quite excited to see his second. Luckily, it lived up to that excitement.

Recently I've complained about slice-of-life movies where the slices are too thin to draw me in, or don't provide enough connective tissue for a cohesive narrative, but this movie avoids that completely. It not only delivers perfectly sized slices of the Bernsteins' life, but also perfectly chosen slices, with each helping to capture the nuance and complexities of their relationship. I can't speak to the accuracy of the portrayals, but I thought the performances were brilliant. I'd also credit the writing, as the dialogue was consistently thought provoking, but not unrealistically so. It's still rare for emotional beats to really land with me, but this film's final act certainly did, getting me watery-eyed in the theater.

With all of this said, I do think I'm somewhat predisposed to the subject matter. Not the world of classical music and conducting, which actually doesn't do anything for me at all (I definitely would have trimmed the extended conducting performance near the end), but the broader exploration of the troubled creative-type. As an aspiring screenwriter who is still crossing my fingers for a call up to the metaphorical Carnegie Hall, I certainly found elements of the story relatable.

A great talent deserves a great biopic. Regrettably, in the case of the late conductor/composer/musician Leonard Bernstein, he doesn’t get it. Writer-actor-director Bradley Cooper has made a film that I’m sure he thinks of as his cinematic masterpiece when, in fact, it comes across more like a tribute to the filmmaker’s own ego than as an homage to his subject. Perhaps the biggest problem here is the screenplay, which can never really decide if it wants to be a litany of the accomplishments of the artist (Cooper) or a love story between him and his adoring wife, Felicia (Carey Mulligan). The constant switching back and forth between the two leaves viewers wondering which will be the focus that the director settles on. Then there’s Cooper’s increasingly hammy overacting, which grows progressively annoying as the film plays out, a performance riddled with knowing looks of “I know I’m going to get awards nominations for this portrayal.” Add to that a somewhat inexplicable shift from monochrome to color cinematography, and audiences are left further pondering the filmmaker’s cinematic motivations while simultaneously having to contend with notably underdeveloped depictions of the character’s motivations, making for a rather shallow take overall when it comes to exploring the protagonist’s nature. To its credit, “Maestro” features a fine production design and gorgeous camera work (especially in the black-and-white sequences), and Mulligan’s luminescent presence is positively captivating, in my view the only real reason for screening this offering in the first place. Otherwise, however, this is a big awards season disappointment that leaves much to be desired – and that likely would have been better off left in the hands of the project’s originally designated director, Steven Spielberg. Cooper may be a fine actor, but that’s what he should stick with, as that’s where his real strength lies – not behind the camera or sitting in the writer’s chair.