Maestro review: Bradley Cooper charms as famed composer

One of the most popular trends across the last 10 years has been the celebrity biopic – though bonus points are scored if the name featured is known, but not well enough to have amassed much public knowledge. Maestro is a film that delicately treads that line.

Second-time director Bradley Cooper has struck gold with the story of composer Leonard Bernstein. Much like many of his other industry compatriots, Bernstein makes for a traditional tortured soul, wrestling through decades of marriage while ascending to new heights in his professional life. On the surface of it all, he is nonchalant, fun, and taking the challenges in his stride.

What Cooper is able to achieve is a film that scratches away the veneer of media pretence and leaves his viewers with a portrait of a man they may recognize in their own lives. His presence never lessens on either side of the camera, giving the cast the breathing space they need to be just as anchored in Leonard’s world as well as his larger-than-life character.

Cooper also isn’t afraid to stare questionable behavior directly in the face, never portraying Leonard in a solely spotless light. After initial backlash following Cooper’s altered look for the role, there’s also no real alluding to Leonard’s life or sense of being outside of his own self-created chaos. Leonard truly is the Maestro of this production, even if his lengthy life tale occasionally loses steam along the way.

Old Hollywood is back, baby

Simply put, Maestro is a film that deals with the life and marriage of a singular man who becomes very well-known for being at one with a particular creative niche – music. Leonard can never fully be tied down, jumping from classical concertos and new-age musical theater projects to lecturing and composing at the solace of his own piano. The same can be said for his personal life, with his decades-long marriage to actress Felicia Montealegre not without its scorch marks.

For Leonard – or at the very least, Cooper’s version of him – life is a dalliance, something to be sampled and tweaked depending on the person’s present taste. This is reflected in his constant craving for musical experimentation but also glimpsed as he collides with his desire for others outside of his marriage to Felicia. It can’t be denied that the two seem destined for each other, working together as an authentic partnership across decades of marriage in sickness and in health. Cooper doesn’t shy away from getting down and dirty with his fictional “ugliness,” drastically aging his appearance and adopting some less-than-savory characteristics.

Carey Mulligan is equally as exceptional in making the marriage come to life in Maestro – although the jury is out on whether she’s a leading or supporting actress. Now officially being campaigned as a lead for awards season, she’s moreso somewhere in between the two definitions, knowing when to step to the side to let Leonard fully flourish. The pair can quickly get bogged down in talking, but when the tension escalates, the stakes are quick to ramp up.

Cooper clearly has an eye for direction

Bradley Cooper’s direction isn’t going to be to everyone’s taste, but Maestro is likely to be up there cinematically with the likes of Academy Award winners La La Land and The Artist. He effortlessly captures the Old Hollywood feel of films gone by, with the film’s visual lens matching how movies would have been seen in their distinct time periods. This helps to conceal the cast’s onscreen aging too – in Leonard’s early days, Cooper appears fresh-faced in black and white, dancing his way through musical numbers with a joie de vivre spirit that never dies down. In the ’60s and ’70s the screen moves to color, taking in the damage of time Leonard has withstood internally and externally.

Unlike the epic worldbuilding of biopics gone by, Maestro is truly a human-centric affair. Leonard and Felicia are the crux of the film and the world they inhabit, which doesn’t leave much wriggle room for anything else. When scenes occasionally feel too drawn out, they notice quickly, unable to shift to smaller details even when Cooper is off-screen. The up-and-coming director knows how to give space to his fellow cast, but his particular style doesn’t seem to allow for much focus beyond that.

Maestro review score: 4/5

An often-elegant and charming picture, Maestro is possibly one of the strongest biopics of the year.

Cooper and Mulligan stay hand-in-hand from start to finish, providing the antidote to whatever the other’s character is in dire need of. Marriage isn’t always a bed of roses, and neither is music – this new incarnation of Leonard Bernstein pries the bones of what society loves to romanticize wide open.

Maestro will stream on Netflix from November 22, 2023. Check out our other upcoming hubs below:

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