Bradley Cooper's 'Maestro' is a complex look at the sweaty enthusiasm of Leonard Bernstein
“Maestro” announces itself from the start.
A TV interview with the aging Leonard Bernstein, played by Bradley Cooper, gives way to a confident, audacious sleight of hand that lets the audience know that Cooper, who produced, directed and co-wrote the film, has big things in mind.
The film shifts from color to stark black and white. A phone rings on Nov. 14, 1943. A man answers; a cigarette offers some light. There is, in front of him, what looks like a theater curtain. Is he backstage? Does he sleep there? Does he live there? He receives the news — the guest conductor for the New York Philharmonic is sick, and he, Bernstein, will fill in.
When he hangs up he opens the curtain — it isn’t a theater curtain after all, but the curtain in his apartment, where he shares the bed with another man, whom he smacks on the bottom as he leaps into action. Bursting with excitement, he runs through the door, into the concert hall and into the rest of his complicated, famous life.
Famous indeed. His debut with the Philharmonic was covered in a Page 1 story in the New York Times. What a time.
It’s exciting filmmaking, and Cooper rarely lets up.
I'm thankful for these: TV and movies
What is the 'Maestro' movie about?
You think it’s one thing, but it’s another. And then another. Which is a fitting vehicle for telling the story — not of Bernstein’s life, cradle to grave, which this is not, but of his rise to fame and, more importantly, his complex relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan, brilliant).
Lenny, as he’s known to all, is eternally restless, in every aspect of his life. He is the first great American conductor and a great composer of Broadway musicals. Yet “it’s not serious music, is it?” he asks Felicia, seemingly dismissing it in favor of the classical compositions he also writes. There is something about how Cooper delivers the line, a mixture of pride and embarrassment, that was for me as moving as anything else he does in the film. And he does a lot.
He meets Felicia, a successful actress, at a party at the home of his sister Shirley (Sarah Silverman) in a scene that plays like a great 1940s romantic comedy. (Cooper uses black-and-white for scenes from earlier parts of Bernstein’s life, color for later.) Their banter recalls screwball comedies like “Bringing Up Baby.” They hop on a bus after the party and it seems like a perfect pairing.
In some ways it is. Lenny and Felicia seem lost in a swirl of art and love, filmed in glorious black and white by cinematographer Matthew Libatique. But for Lenny, a perfect romance with Felicia is no reason to stop sleeping with men. Felicia knows this. “I know exactly who you are,” she tells him. “Let’s give it a whirl.”
And so they do. They raise three children together, and it is clear that Lenny loves Felicia. It is also clear that he has no plans to stop pursuing other men. Given the times, he is closeted, somewhat, but makes no particular effort to hide his flirting and affairs from her. Sometimes it is funny, sometimes uncouth and, at least on some level, always hurtful. Their oldest daughter, Jamie (Maya Hawke), asks the uncomfortable questions, which for a time Lenny answers in the most convenient, least-painful manner: He lies.
Cooper goes all in with acting and directing
All this comes to a head on a Thanksgiving morning in their Upper West Side apartment that looks out on Central Park, when Felicia, seemingly endlessly patient, but not quite so any longer, unleashes a torrent of built-up rage on a startled Lenny. He remains oblivious, or at least willfully ignorant, to the notion that his behavior could hurt anyone else. It doesn’t hurt him, after all. He loves people, he says more than once. What’s the harm? You’re getting sloppy, Felicia warns him. “If you’re not careful, you’re going to die a lonely queen.”
As Lenny sits there, stunned into rare silence, a giant Snoopy balloon floats by the window, part of the parade. It sounds like Cooper the director showing off, and maybe it is, but the combination, along with the film now in what looks like a dated, slightly washed-out color, is devastating.
We don’t see much of actual musical composition or of Bernstein’s many concerts, shows, television programs and more (nothing, for instance, of his “Young People’s Concerts” or “West Side Story”). We do see him conduct, and it is impressive, both from a filmmaking and acting perspective. Cooper goes all in with his performance, embodying Bernstein’s sweaty enthusiasm.
Yet for all that, this is mostly Mulligan’s movie, and she’s brilliant. It is often reactive, but watch her watch Lenny when he answers Edward R. Murrow’s question about how he balances his life. Or when she walks in on him with another man during one of their elaborate parties. Felicia is an actress, but she can only act for so long.
And now a word about the prosthetic nose controversy: Mark Harris addresses it in an essay for Slate far better than I could. It certainly doesn’t play as anything offensive. Or, to put it another way, in the context of “Maestro,” you likely won’t even notice.
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'Maestro' 4.5 stars
Great ★★★★★ Good ★★★★
Fair ★★★ Bad ★★ Bomb ★
Director: Bradley Cooper.
Cast: Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper, Sarah Silverman.
Rating: R for some language and drug use.
How to watch: In theaters Friday, Dec. 1. Streaming on Netflix Wednesday, Dec. 20.
Reach Goodykoontz at [email protected]. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. X, formerly known as Twitter: @goodyk.
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: 'Maestro' review: Bradley Cooper is heartbreaking as Leonard Bernstein
