"Maestro" -- Movie Review

 

In the first full week of the 61^st New York Film Festival, I attended the North American Premiere of the biographical drama, “Maestro”, directed by Bradley Cooper who also stars with Carey Mulligan. 

Synopsis

The personal and professional life of composer/conductor Leonard Bernstein.

Story

At 9:30AM on a mooning in 1947, Leonard Bernstein (Cooper) got the telephone call that would forever set his life on a new trajectory:  the conductor for The New York Philharmonic would not be able to make the performance at Carnegie Hall that day, so young Leonard would have to fill-in for him – despite the fact that there would be no time for rehearsal.  The reception by the audience was so positive that his career as a full-fledged orchestra conductor (as well as composer) would now take off.  Not only would this change his career, it would change his personal life as well; in expanding his social network, he is invited to a party where he meets Felicia (Mulligan), an actress who would go on to become his wife.

Although Leonard had great affection for Felicia, this talented artist was a man of abundant sexual appetites in which he felt obliged to indulge – and so he did, with both other women and men as well.  At first, Felicia seemed oblivious to this.  Then she chose to overlook it altogether, perhaps hoping he would eventually change.  After they got married, however, she grew increasingly annoyed; Felicia understandably felt humiliated, especially when Leonard would flaunt his behavior indiscreetly.  Friends and family could not help but notice.  Finally, she couldn’t take it any longer and confronts her successful husband about how his behavior was impacting her.  

By the time their children were now grown, Leonard and Felicia’s marriage faced yet another challenge:  she was diagnosed with breast cancer.  Felicia fought mightily, but eventually succumbed.  Regardless of whatever feelings of betrayal she may have towards her husband at this point, Leonard, in his own way, cared for her deeply.  Without her, he was now lost, a lonely soul adrift in a sea of parasitic manipulators.  Would Leonard now take this as an opportunity to pull himself together for the sake of his children and his legacy, or would he instead find it as an excuse to surrender to even darker behavior?

Review

By no means did Bradley Cooper seek to make a hagiography when envisioning “Maestro” – quite the opposite, in fact.  As talented as the composer/conductor is presented in this movie, Cooper does not ignore the fact that Bernstein was a bit of a scoundrel as well.  Based on what we see in this film, it would seem that the closer you are to Bernstein, the more comfortable he feels when it comes to taking advantage of you.  While there is no valid excuse for this, it appears that those who are blessed to be great artists are also cursed with serious character flaws; besides Bernstein’s bisexual promiscuity, he was a chain-smoker, possible alcoholic and – at least later in life – illicit drug user. 

Despite the fact that the performances by Cooper and Mulligan are quite good (it’s easy to imagine her getting award nominations), there are some moments that are a bit cringeworthy in the context of the story.  For example, an attraction to one of the sailors dancing in “Fancy Free” (“On The Town”) has some kind of fantasy sequence where Cooper/Bernstein is dancing with him as a sailor while Felicia/Mulligan looks on somewhat confused.  Also, Cooper chooses to shoot the first half of the movie in black and white, switching to color in Bernstein’s later years.  This decision is a bit baffling, but you either go with it or you don’t. 

In a question and answer session following the screening, the screenwriter revealed that the project had originally begun around 15 years ago when one of the producers pitched the idea to a studio.  Bradley Cooper entered the project about five or six years ago and that’s where the momentum began to pick up.  A draft of the screenplay had been written a while back but after Cooper did a deep dive on researching the subject, he collaborated with the original screenwriter on what basically amounted to a full rewrite of the script.  The make-up artist discussed the challenges of aging Cooper around 40-50 years; Cooper spent about two and a half hours in make-up for Bernstein’s younger years, but as he aged, that time increased to four or five hours.