Pops Saw a Movie: MAESTRO

I still haven’t seen OPPENHEIMER and it took me three sittings to get through BARBIE (no review pending). But last night I dove into MAESTRO, and was… underwhelmed. Despite owning a dozen or so of Leonard Bernstein’s albums (both music he composed and conducted), I’m hardly well versed in classical music (unlike my brother). I was actually hoping for a movie that would convey Bernstein’s passion for this music into something transcendent and moving. What I got was a movie about Bradley Cooper’s passion for… Bradley Cooper. Leaning heavily into personal melodrama and era-specific cinematography (not to mention aging makeup), this feels more like a vanity project for the star / director than a tribute to a complicated artist (kind of like a less embarrassing version of Kevin Spacey’s Bobby Darin biopic, BEYOND THE SEA). 

As a director, Cooper seems unable to pull good performances out of actors who aren’t already great (I love her, but Sarah Silverman was painfully bad as Bernstein’s sister). As an actor, Cooper feels more like he’s going for an impersonation of the man than a depiction (I never stopped noticing the makeup and the affected voice, not a good sign). 

But maybe the most irrefutable evidence of this movie’s failure is that when it was over, I wasn’t compelled to pull out any of my Bernstein discs and give them a listen (as I was with my Gershwin albums after watching the 1945 film, RHAPSODY IN BLUE over the summer). MAESTRO conveys almost no passion for Bernstein’s music, at least not as much as his passion for young men and cigarettes. 

Paired with Cooper’s likewise-painful A STAR IS BORN remake (a movie for which I struggle to understand the accolades), there’s now ample evidence that Bradley Cooper is primiarly interested in delving into the greatness of himself. You want a good movie about classical music and a complicated genius? Watch Cate Blanchett in TAR instead. 

Oh, and I’m going to keep calling this film, LENNY. 

Originally posted on social media, Jan. 8, 2024