Year of Release: 2023
Director: Bradley Cooper
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer, Sarah Silverman, Maya Hawke, Miriam Shor, Zachary Booth, James Cusati-Moyer, Josh Hamilton, Sam Nivola, Alexa Swinton, Jordan Dobson, Michael Urie, Nick Blaemire, Greg Hildreth,
Genre: Drama
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 7
Watch it on Netflix
Synopsis and Review
Another prestige release from Netflix, this one comes courtesy of multi-hyphenate Bradley Cooper, in his sophomore directorial outing, following his great debut with "A Star is Born". The narrative focuses on the life of composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, and his numerous relationships, but with a particular focus on his marriage to Felicia Montealegre. The film captures Leonard's life at different junctures, starting with his journey towards recognition, when at age 25 (in 1943) he makes his conducting debut, quite unexpectedly, as a result of a guest conductor falling ill. Following raves reviews of his work, his career takes off. He maintains a romantic relationship with clarinetist David Oppenheim, but he meets Felicia Montealegre, an actress, at a party and is smitten with her. They eventually marry, and have three children, and remain supportive of each other's careers throughout their lives. Bernstein's success continues to rise, with his name appearing on multiple successful operas and Broadway musicals, including West Side Story. However in parallel with his success, Bernstein's personal excesses also start becoming more evident, including multiple affairs with men, and substance abuse, something that starts corroding his relationship with Felicia. They have a devastating argument one Thanksgiving, but remain married. While they manage to patch their relationship, things take a darker turn when Felicia becomes ill.
In a way Leonard Bernstein's life had a way to wreak a bit of havoc on Bradley Cooper's second directorial outing. One of the things that I mostly personally appreciated about his debut, "A Star is Born", was how he pursued a sense of authenticity to his characters, allowing them to be flawed, and imminently human, even if they were operating within the confinements of a well known story. In "Maestro", Bradley Cooper stylizes his approach, and looks a bit over his shoulder, as if the figure of Mr. Bernstein is looking at his interpretation of his own life, and therefore the director has to tread the topics with competence, but without infusing them with an actual spark of life. And that's what ends up summarizing this film: it's competent, and hints at brilliance, but there's too much restraint and it is unable to bring the characters to life. With that being said, there's much to admire here, and while Bradley Cooper is trying to find his stylistic voice and approach, one thing remains true: he is able to elicit great performances from his cast, and this case is no exception. Both him and the luminous Carey Mulligan carry this film with an ease and complicity which makes the relationship between Leonard and Felicia feel intimate and authentic. Sadly the script is unable to do much for the supporting characters and even for the supporting scenarios. It treats them all as sketches for a brief montage, which almost begs the question if Bradley Cooper and Josh Singer had focused on a specific time period of Bernstein's life, maybe that would have allowed more characters to have additional dimension and bring some nuance to the web of relationships that the film hints at, but never truly develops (I personally wanted to know more about Sarah Silverman's Shirley Bernstein). Nonetheless, and while some reviews found the film pretentious, and even tedious, I disagree with that assessment. While it doesn't hit all its marks, it's an ambitious film, focused on a flawed and larger than life persona, and while unbalanced, it still manages to characterize and bring color to the central characters of the narrative. Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan are excellent, as expected, with good support provided by Sarah Silverman and Matt Bomer. The production team is impeccable, including the beautiful cinematography from Matthew Libatique, production design from Kevin Thompson, costumes by Mark Bridges, and the makeup artistry from Kazu Hiro and an array of artists, all of which did a phenomenal job of adding authenticity to these characters. A flawed film, but worth watching for sure.
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