Is 'Maestro' another directorial home run for Bradley Cooper?
The awards contenders hits St. Louis theaters this weekend and Netflix on Dec. 20.
Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) loved life as much as he loved music and his wife, Felicia (Carey Mulligan). Being around people was his energy, the juice that helped create those stunning musical numbers, conducted or composed. Bernstein’s soul was genuine, maybe too much so, gathering strength with each mind he could explore. It was her who grounded his jet-like personality.
Their love story is the heart and soul of Cooper’s new film. Maestro.
His screenplay with Josh Singer handles all the passion, trepidation, and complexity in Bernstein’s relationships--taking the bumpy and smooth roads to fully projecting the legend’s persona to the tilt. There’s a bravery in their storytelling methods that gathers your respect slowly, and that’s due to Cooper not treating Bernstein’s sexuality like a wicked secret.
For a long time, Cooper was Hollywood’s best kept secret. He played the friend or foe of the hero in romantic comedies, setting us up for the eventual awakening of his true talents that began with a breakdown of an Ernest Hemingway novel to his restless parents. The Oscar nominations proved he was the real deal, but his directing ability shown with 2018’s A Star Is Born proved Cooper is something else.
It’s his energy that powers this film through its 129 minutes, which carry a smooth tone at times and feels rushed at other junctures. Cooper’s enthusiasm and respect for Bernstein, through look and exuberance on screen, is contagious with a willing audience. He doesn’t just play the greatest hits of the man’s career; Cooper channels the man’s spirit for two hours.
If Cooper is the engine that makes the movie run and stay together, the top-billed Mulligan is the resilient soul that makes you fall in love with the world. In a way, the audience sits in her shoes, reacting to Leonard’s kinetic willpower and finding meaning and empathy in his conflicted moments. She gives Cooper, Bernstein, and the whole production a spine that should result in another Oscar invitation for Mulligan. The fracture for Felicia was the fact she was a great actress in her own right, but gave so much of herself to his flight that sometimes it delayed her own shooting star.
The Netflix original film celebrates her life as much as it does her, because Felicia is what made Bernstein a Maestro.
For all music aficionados and lovers of his work, Bernstein’s conduction of Mahler’s Second Symphony late in the film is a stunner. An easy best scene of the year candidate, it compels and exhausts the viewer as it runs the course of impressive to mesmerizing. Cooper throws his whole weight and kitchen sink at the scene, locking Leonard’s movements in like he’s been missing rent payments in the man’s mind for half his life. He’s just there.
That scene rounds the film into a nice finish. If there’s a flaw here, it’s a wavering focus in the second act. The at-times musical aesthetic felt like a distraction, but that has more to do with my disdain for the genre than Cooper’s heartfelt intentions. Together with a first rate supporting cast (bravo, Matt Bomer!), he and Mulligan make everything land in the climax.
A supreme hat tip to the makeup crew. Hand them the Oscar right now, at least to hold onto. Watching Cooper in the first scene pop out of bed and into instant stardom with a young blaze, only to turn it over into an older (yet still energy-filled) man is a testament to the filmmaker and team of makeup maestros. It’s next level work, as you can see in the picture below.
While not perfect and slightly erratic with its ultimate focus at times, Cooper’s Maestro is a thrillingly alive showcase of one of show business’s most impressive couples.