Directed By Bradley Cooper

Starring – Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Matt Bomer

The Plot – Tells the complex love story of Leonard (Cooper) and Felicia (Mulligan), a story that spans over 30 years-from the time they met in 1946 at a party and continuing through two engagements, a 25 year marriage, and three children: Jamie Bernstein, Alexander Bernstein and Nina Bernstein Simmons.

Rated R for some adult language and drug use

Maestro | Official Trailer | Netflix – YouTube

POSITIVES

It’s beginning to get difficult to distinguish Bradley Cooper as this experimentally gifted director who approaches uncomfortable stories with eager enthusiasm, or a shape-shifting actor who continuously commands the screen with nuance. Either way, let’s just be glad that “Maestro” is another opportunity for him to flex a lot of each, in what will inevitably earn him an Oscar nomination in each respective category. For the directing side of things, Cooper taps into terrifying every day realities of living a lie as something Leonard so definitely is not, bringing out everything from triumph to tragedy in the tastes of his musical compositions as an iconic composer, which really put him in a class of his own. This is capped off with Cooper’s brilliance in presentational qualities, which intentionally slice the film and its love story at the front of it, into two respective halves to convey meaningful emphasis into the atmosphere of their relationship. During the first half, the story is blessed with a bubbly personality, full of unique cinematography choices and aspect ratios that continuously take on the tones and textures of each era that the love story sifts through, but when their relationship takes a rocky tumble with the truth, Cooper conjures these uneasy long takes as a fly on the wall perspective of these distant sequences, and with the remarkable work of Cooper and Mulligan thriving in these tensely unforgiving instances, supplants attention-stealing sparks towards each of them. Cooper’s performance as Bernstein far succeeds the idea of this being simply an impression, with maneurisms, performing nuances and a consistent accent that transform him before our very eyes, and Mulligan’s mustering has never been stronger, depending on her for many of the film’s heavy lifting of emotional beats, which Carey of course crushes with unfiltered poise and prominence, which makes Felicia feel like so much more than the personality she portrayed in acting for decades. Beyond this, the sound designs and orchestral achievements from Bernstein’s own catalogue are the spice that stir the soup, with thunderously overwhelming volume levels that influence emphasis into the very internal battles that remained persistent, each time Leonard took the stage. Because of such, Cooper responsibly credits Bernstein as the movie’s sole composer, and while so much more of this script pertains to the man Leonard was behind the music, still takes ample time fleshing out the masterful musician that effortlessly inspired his peers. Lastly, much respect goes to the make-up, wig work and prosthetics departments of the movie’s production values, which harvest believability in the depths of their designs. Whether in the subtleties of Leonard’s familiarity in distinguishing features, or the naturalizing of aging, it’s clear that much respect and attention was paid to the character’s most distinct detail, allowing a visual impact to match the merit of those aforementioned meaningful performances, which bring these people back to life in the best kind of ways.

NEGATIVES

Despite Cooper waging a dual brilliance on the respective aspects of directing and starring in the film, his script feels like he was a bit overwhelmed in capturing the extensive scope of Bernstein’s story, with forgettable angles between this love story receiving an almost episodic emphasis in the way they’re continuously conjured. This can be felt casually throughout the duration of the movie’s two hour run time, but essentially during the opening act of the movie, where Leonard and Felicia meet, fall in love, dump their respective exes, and have three children, over the course of the film’s opening thirty-five minutes. Never mind the fact that supporting characters and their respective arcs are introduced and resolved within a duo of neighboring scenes, with Bomer’s David Oppenheim being the overwhelming tragedy of the movie’s focus, but also with thirty years of events making up the entirety of the film’s limitation in run time, which even at two hours lacks the kind of commitment to detail needed to tie so many of these threads together cohesively. Beyond this, my only other problem with the film pertained to its ending, which is either framed entirely wrong, or atmospherically corny. I say this because there’s a moment of triumph for particular character, and with it coming on the back of another character lost, it makes this person come off a bit insensitive and even improper, with R.E.M’s “The End of the World” playing over it. It’s definitely more than a wee bit on the nose, but beyond that a silly exclamation point to a film that was otherwise loaded with so much emotional maturity and rawness that handled the conflicts appropriately.

OVERALL
“Maestro” is a couple of flat notes shy of a perfect pitch, but does overcome momentary inflections with Cooper’s most ambitious direction to date, stirring two award-worthy performances for the price of one to dazzle the decades-absorbing production values of Leonard and Felicia’s unconventional love story.

My Grade: 8/10 or B+