Maestro

Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in Maestro

Bradley Cooper's Maestro is an unsatisfying look at the life of Leonard Bernstein through the prism of his relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre. Bernstein was a multi-dimensional figure and Cooper's approach diminishes him. The film flattens the cultural background of his work in its antic rush to illustrate his meteoric rise. Important figures in Bernstein's early career (Jerome Robbins, Serge Koussevitzky, David Oppenheim, Stephen Sondheim, Aaron Copland, Comden and Green) flash by or are name checked with little explanation of who they were or why they were important. I doubt many viewers under fifty will have a clue about this cast of characters. Despite my misgivings about Oppenheimer, it did a better job sketching the supporting characters around its titular genius.

This might not matter if the central relationship of Maestro was compelling, but it is not. The film establishes early on that Lenny was mad about boys, but Cooper treats his relationship with Felicia with a kid glove treatment that gives us very little sense of the give and take of an actual relationship. In the 1950s, black and white Lenny and Felicia are a happy couple with a burgeoning family. Then, one cut later, it's the 1970s, in color, and Lenny is pawing the first pretty boy he meets at a cocktail party. There is no gradation in this portrait of a marriage or any real sense of Bernstein's sexual fluidity. Likewise, the depiction of career highlights, which alternate with domestic scenes in the film, are a nonstop parade of artistic triumphs. Cooper, as in A Star is Born, is more adept with the performance sequences than the domestic ones, but one gets zero sense how quickly Bernstein fell out of fashion. It is one thing to skip the Black Panther cocktail party, this is a film made with the cooperation of the Bernstein family after all, but is dishonest to portray the debut of Bernstein's Mass, which inaugurated the opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971, as anything other than a flop. 

The closest the film comes to showing Bernstein's warts is a party scene where he snorts cocaine while his compadres discuss "chickens". There were much more embarrassing aspects to Bernstein's life and I am not referring to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Despite his flaws, Bernstein was a cultural titan, a fact the film barely conveys. Bernstein's accomplishments, like his relationships, are mentioned in the film, but not shown. Maestro is that rare film which could have benefitted from a musical montage sequence.

The most glaring defect in the film is Cooper's performance. I think Carey Mulligan, as Felicia, has been so highly praised because she is so much more convincing than her co-star. Sarah Silverman, as Bernstein's sister, gives the film's best performance because she wills herself out of the film's cluttered background. Cooper is a highly skilled technical actor, but his performance doesn't capture the actual maestro. He captures Bernstein's energy on the podium, but, otherwise, seems too goy and too straight. He fails to capture the mellifluous music of the man's voice and the mincing flamboyance of his carriage. All the rest of Maestro is under sketched cultural and emotional baggage, foursquare and with nary a surprise.