Maestro is a 129 minute-long film co-written, directed and starring Bradley Cooper as the composer Leonard Bernstein; it is a biopic focussing on Bernstein’s marriage with Felicia Montealegre Cohn, a stage and television actress.
Bernstein was a conductor and composer, who penned works including the musicals West Side Story and Candide, the film score for On the Waterfront, and instrumental works such as symphonies. Despite having extended extracts from his work, especially when he is conducting it (actors love performances), in common with most of this sort of film there was no insight into his composing process, or into his musical influences. As one critic pointed out on 1MdB: “You don't see him developing any projects or working with collaborators.” The focus was relentlessly on his relationship with his wife, a relationship tested to the limit by his restlessness, his zest for life, and his rampant bisexuality.
The restlessness was conveyed through the often hectic dialogue, the seamless way in which the action moves from personal life into the theatre and the concert hall in the early part of the film (which helped suggest Bernstein’s multi-tasking: he wrote Candide and West Side Story simultaneously while also conducting and playing and teaching), the disjointed narrative and the (possibly over-the-top?) acting of Cooper which is full of what the Guardian, which gives maestro four stars out of five, calls "zesty, kinetic energy”, and mannerisms (apparently true to life) and which makes a striking contrast with the calm understated portrayal of Mrs B by Carey Mulligan.
The dialogue was very unstructured, often hectic, with the actors frequently repeating lines. There was an impromptu feeling about it. This style of dialogue sounded true to everyday speech, although the content sounded like it had been taken from Private Eye’s Pseuds’ Corner. yes, this brilliantly conveyed Bernstein’s restlessness, but it could be annoying and wearisome.
The pace of the film was inconsistent. At the start it moved very quickly, rushing through the middle part of Bernstein's career (we learned almost nothing about his childhood or early life; the film starts with his big break as a conductor) and then slowing drastically after he got married. The action was punctuated by extended scenes which sometimes felt over-long and self-indulgent, such as the performance of a concert in a church which seems to be an extended showcase for Cooper to mimic Bernstein's excessively physical performance as a conductor; thirty seconds of this would have made the point but this scene goes on and on. Scenes such as this were described by a critic on Rotten Tomatoes as "flamboyant intermissions”
The pace of the film was inconsistent. At the start it moved very quickly, rushing through the middle part of Bernstein's career (we learned almost nothing about his childhood or early life; the film starts with his big break as a conductor) and then slowing drastically after he got married. The action was punctuated by extended scenes which sometimes felt over-long and self-indulgent, such as the performance of a concert in a church which seems to be an extended showcase for Cooper to mimic Bernstein's excessively physical performance as a conductor; thirty seconds of this would have made the point but this scene goes on and on. Scenes such as this were described by a critic on Rotten Tomatoes as "flamboyant intermissions”
The whole film felt mannered and pretentious, all style but little substance, "self aware to the point of being irritating" (Matthew S). Some critics, on Rotten Tomatoes and 1MDb (which rated it 6.8/10) seemed to think that the film was targeted at garnering awards. This was also suggested by the disparity between the critics' score of 79% and the audience score of 63% on Rotten Tomatoes.
I could not help feeling sorry for Bernstein's wife, whose acting career must have suffered (she seems to have been mostly limited to New York) when she raised Bernstein's family. Was he ever in love with her or was she his 'beard'? I understand why homosexual men then (and perhaps now) sought to disguise their homosexuality by marrying and having children but does this not represent an exploitation of the wife and kids? The film suggests that Mrs B knew that Leonard was bisexual when she married him and tolerated discreet affairs but drew the line when they became too obvious to be ignored, insisting that he lied to his daughter when she was troubled by rumours about him. But his multiple infidelities must have been a betrayal and she did leave him, although they got together again while she was dying of lung cancer.
But I hadn't become sufficiently invested in the characters to feel more than 'oh that's sad' when Mrs B became ill and by that time I was pretty fed up. I had started looking at the clock after about half an hour of this film. Through most of it I was bored. I was glad when it finished.
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