‘Maestro’ Movie Review [AFI Fest 2023]: Bradley Cooper’s Insincere Leonard Bernstein Biopic Lacks Emotional Weight
Photo from Jason McDonald/Netflix
From Jeff Nelson
Actor-turned-director Bradley Cooper makes his sophomore effort with Maestro after his stellar and raw work on 2018’s A Star Is Born. Now, he turns his sights to a biopic exploring the life of American composer Leonard Bernstein. Unfortunately, it’s overdirected, insincere, and largely apathetic of its subject.
Maestro is an exploration of the complicated, yet full love between Leonard (Cooper) and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (Carey Mulligan). Moving through time, their relationship evolves through several stages, as the hidden lives behind their fame come to light.
Cooper and Josh Singer’s screenplay acknowledges Bernstein’s stature within his career and among his social circle, tracking his success from his early days. However, the focus isn’t on his work. Rather, Maestro is a love story of sorts between Leonard and Felicia, who had three children together, none of whom are explored with any nuance. They exist as a plot beat in their marriage, rather than characters with real weight on the plot.
Leonard’s sexuality is a big part of Maestro. We’re introduced to his initial romance with David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), who suddenly disappears from the story without a trace, abandoning what appears to be a significant part of his life. Flings and romances come and go, putting a wedge in Leonard’s relationship with Felicia. His relationships with men are thinly-drawn, making it abundantly clear that Cooper doesn’t know how to approach this side of him.
Maestro’s strongest asset is the level of performance across the cast. Cooper is magnificent as Leonard, pouring his soul into his most gut-wrenching scenes. Mulligan fires on all cylinders as Felicia, beautifully weaving the character’s doubts, hopes, dreams, and fears into a spell-binding showing. Meanwhile, Bomer brings a subtle sincerity to David in this smaller role.
Cinematographer Matthew Libatique’s utterly stunning imagery elevates Maestro, gorgeously leveraging black-and-white and colored imagery. Cooper’s overdirects here, but there’s no denying the film’s visual beauty. Unfortunately, the audio falls short with mushy dialogue, making it frequently difficult to understand what the performers are saying.
There are a couple of phenomenal individual scenes, such as the church orchestra, but this scattershot story doesn’t amount to much. Cooper and Singer’s screenplay swings for big, heart-rending moments that come across as insincere. Leonard’s sexuality is severely mishandled, remaining abundantly apparent that we’re looking at an LGBTQ person from a heterosexual perspective. Maestro is a visually stunning fever dream of a biopic that’s utterly chaotic, emotionally deficient, and regrettably hollow.
Rating: 2/5
Maestro played at AFI Fest 2023 on October 29th, 2023. It comes to limited theaters on November 22nd, 2023, before streaming on Netflix on December 20th, 2023.
