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Maestro Movie Review Rating:
Star Cast: Bradley Cooper, Carey Mulligan, Maya Hawke, Matt Bomer & ensemble.
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Director: Bradley Cooper.
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What’s Good: Bradley Cooper, as the titular character, gives the best performance of his career so far. He breaks his real image entirely to create one that is far from his authentic self.
What’s Bad: the emotional punch which is lacking in some parts of the film and ends up diluting the impact in some of the most crucial scenes.
Loo Break: there are predictable bits. If you can make it quick, you have a chance.
Watch or Not?: it is an actor giving the best performance of his life so far. Which means you have to watch him do the magic.
Language: English.
Available On: MAMI Film Festival 2023.
Runtime: 129 Minutes.
User Rating:
The biopic scales the life of legendary musician Leonard Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. It explores the beginning of their relationship, the blooming, of family life, and the tragedy that hit them like a bus.
Hollywood has been consistently making some very wrong choices when it comes to biopics. Blonde that, released on Netflix, was more exploitative towards its subject than curious. Months later, the platform is all set to release yet another biography, but this time a biographical love story of the musical legend and conductor Leonard Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. Helmed by Bradley Cooper, are we finally up for a movie much more than surface-level exploration? Pretty much yes.
Written by Bradley with co-screenwriter Josh Singer, Maestro doesn’t end up being a stereotypical closeted gay man in love with a straight woman story. Instead, it tries to navigate and find what exactly happened between the two who spent 27 years in this marriage that literally went through every hurdle it possibly could. Maestro is Cooper’s attempt to make his audience travel through history. His idea of having a 4:3 screen ratio to a movie partially shot in monochrome is genius. Because when he merges his blooming love life with a skyrocketing career and forms a musical put of it, you see how confident as a writer he is to let his movie enter a musical zone.
Through Leonard, he manages to explore the old Hollywood. He was the man who gave music to some of the most iconic movies and plays, The West Side Story included. But his personal life also had his s*xuality that was inclined towards men. And it has to be discreet because the old Hollywood was not as open as it is today. Where Maestro falls short is when it transitions from monochrome to color, and the shift is a big one because the entire perspective is changing. The emotional depth, for a very brief period, goes for a toss, until the enormous tragedy hits.
Maestro wins when it finally decides to be a story about a couple who are mending their distance regardless of their star status. It is not the attention that they are bothered about but an uncalled for guest.
Bradley Cooper goes the ‘add prosthetics, let it be a little caricature, and a very method acting’ way and gives a performance that fits the pallet of the Oscar nomination committee. His performance is so good that, at points, I couldn’t see the Cooper I have grown up watching. Here is a man with his sea blue eyes looking the sharpest even in monochrome, but he knows what he is supposed to and not just rely on his looks.
Carey Mulligan as Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein is such a balanced performance. The actor is such a player when it comes to performing an intense argument. She manages to grab the attention of a room full of people with just a little.
Maya Hawke and the rest of the cast do a great job at elevating the movie.
This is the second time Bradley Cooper is trying his hand at direction after A Star Is Born, and the actor needs to do this quote often. If you look at Maestro, it is a very potent blend of La La Land and Blonde (the good parts of it). Cooper is now ready to direct a musical and a very brilliant one. Look at how he shapes the first half, where he shows you the love story. He treats the set like a stage and introduces music so seamlessly that it all looks so convincing.
With his favorite DOP, Matthew Libatique, they create such fascinating frames. Some screens are chaotic with handheld frames, and some frames are stable and still bring you a cathartic vibe. The music supports the narrative, and two elaborate pieces are the standouts.
Maestro is an ace film consisting of two compelling performances that will definitely be the highlight of almost all award nights. Go for it, but not with skyrocketing expectations.
Maestro releases on 29th October, 2023.
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For more recommendations, read our Dumb Money Movie Review here!
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