Towards the end of Maestro, we see an older Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) mentoring a young conductor, helping him work out one tiny piece of a symphony; they work through the same three of four bars of music over and over, looking for the one specific moment that needs to be sharpened and clarified. It’s a reminder of the tiny intricacies involved in the creation of art, and how the granular moments can be just as important as the big, showy ones.
As conductor of Maestro — he’s the film’s director, star, producer, and co-writer — Cooper might have benefited from taking this lesson more to heart. There are dazzling, funny, heartbreaking sequences throughout this examination of the music legend and his complicated personal life, but they are undercut by aspects that might have benefited from more attention or deeper thought.
The act of tackling this material is grandly ambitious, as it delves into the creative process of a 20th-century legend while also exploring the specific complications of Bernstein’s marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). The two meet at a party in 1946: she’s an up-and-comer on the stage, he’s just gotten his big break by conducting, at the age of 25, the New York Philharmonic. At the time of their meeting, Leonard is involved with musician David (Matt Bomer), but after falling for Felicia, he makes up his mind to marry her.
She clearly understands her husband’s romantic past with men, and, at first, it doesn’t faze her. Within a few years, they’re a Manhattan power couple, being interviewed jointly by Edward R. Murrow about her work on Broadway and his successes as both a conductor and as the composer of the musical On the Town and the score for On the Waterfront. But his roving eye and decreasing sense of discretion about his male protégés begins to take its toll on the marriage, leading to an eventual separation. It’s not until Felicia finds herself facing a cancer diagnosis that Leonard reappears at her side to provide support and to acknowledge, despite all their problems, that she has been the love of his life.
The screenplay by Cooper and Josh Singer (Spotlight) acknowledges the broader complications of the closet in 20th century America, and how it often forced gay and bisexual men into conventional marriages with women if only for the sake of appearances. (There’s a moving moment in which Leonard and David, now both husbands and dads, have a chance encounter on the street, and Leonard is overcome with the grief of what might have been.) At the same time, the film acknowledges Bernstein’s ego and hunger for connection — “I love people” is a constant refrain — suggesting he would have taxed the patience of a husband as much as he did that of his actual wife.
Cinematographer Matthew Libatique shoots the courtship and early married years of Leonard and Felicia in nostalgic black and white, switching to color as their relationship grows more fraught. (His lighting and color design, aided by Mark Bridges’ costumes, always provide a definite sense of time; when in color, Maestro captures the look of the magazines of each particular era, the ones that would have been covering the Bernsteins’ glamorous-from-the-outside home life.)
Taking the bloom off the rose of this marriage rescues Maestro at just the right time: in the early sequences, the performances of Cooper and Mulligan don’t quite register. Cooper leans too hard into the charisma and charm of Bernstein, turning the character into an always-on game-show host rather than a recognizable human being, while Mulligan’s off-putting mid-Atlantic accent doesn’t quite ring true. As the characters get older, however, their voices get deeper, and more tempered with resentment (and occasional rage), bringing both lead performances to a more effective level. (Kazu Hiro’s impressive prosthetics for Cooper also become less distracting and more natural-appearing as the character ages.)
Maestro captures Bernstein’s sheer love of music; there’s an impressive sequence toward the end, shot to look like one continuous take, where he’s conducting an orchestra, a chorus, and soloists, and the commitment to putting together all the moving pieces of this elaborate performance registers in the broad enthusiasm on Cooper’s face. (Footage of Bernstein that runs over the closing credits confirms that the real maestro registered the same delight at the podium; the joy of conducting expressed here makes Maestro the anti-Tàr.)
That same confidence shows in Cooper’s directing: He makes bold choices throughout, including mirroring scenes of heartbreak for David and Felicia as they realize Leonard’s affections have moved elsewhere, and a romantic montage for Leonard and Felicia that gets subsumed within a dance number from On the Town. (The film is scored entirely to Bernstein’s music, except for an awkward but requisite R.E.M. needle-drop.) And while it’s very much Cooper and Mulligan’s show — he’s given her top billing among the cast — the director finds memorable moments for his sterling ensemble, which also includes Sarah Silverman, Maya Hawke, and Josh Hamilton.
As a commercial director creating an awards-season movie, however, Cooper can’t resist taking the sentimental route when it comes to Felicia’s illness. There are certainly powerful moments within that sequence, most notably Mulligan’s controlled breakdown when she first receives the diagnosis, but Maestro overextends itself in the hopes of wringing every tear out of the audience that it can.
For its occasional flaws, however, the net effect of Maestro is a powerful one, as it celebrates its subject’s extraordinary accomplishments in an often moving and always sweeping period saga.
Director: Bradley Cooper
Screenwriters: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper, Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, Sarah Silverman, Josh Hamilton, Scott Ellis, Gideon Glick, Sam Nivola, Alexa Swinton, Miriam Shor
Producers: Martin Scorsese, Bradley Cooper, Steven Spielberg, Fred Berner, Amy Durning, Kristie Macosko Krieger
Executive producers: Carla Raij, Josh Singer, Bobby Wilhelm, Weston Middleton, Tracey Landon
Director of photography: Matthew Libatique
Production design: Kevin Thompson
Costume design: Mark Bridges
Editing: Michelle Tesoro
Music: Leonard Bernstein
Sound: Tony Martinez, supervising dialogue and ADR editor
Production companies: Netflix, Amblin Entertainment, Sikelia Productions, Fred Berner Films, Joint Effort
In English
129 minutes
