On the verge of securing a golden opportunity, American conductor Leonard Bernstein begins a tumultuous relationship with actress Felicia Montealegre, upturning their lives.
Maestro is directed by Bradley Cooper which is his second film in his directing career the first being A Star is Born (2018). After A Star is Born came out and ended up being one of my favorites of 2018 and the 2010s in general, I was very excited to see what Cooper would do next with his directing career. It's unfortunate to say that Maestro is a step down from his previous work.
Maestro centers around the relationship between famous American composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife Felicia Montealegre, it's not a biopic in the tradional sense so at the very least it isn't trying to do the exact same thing as a lot of other biopics. However that doesn't mean it fully works as there are a lot of glaring issues here.
I'll start with what worked well here, Bradley Cooper gives a solid performance as Leonard Bernstein. There's definitely a few hiccups at times but for the most part he does a pretty solid job, I do think he is much stronger during the last portion of the movie especially during it's final moments. Carey Mulligan's performance I was a bit harsh on when I first watched it, I called it "not good" which is not exactly true and would be sort of dishonest to say it is. Like Cooper there are a few hiccups but I actually think she gives the stronger performance, her entrance to the movie being the strongest moment for her performance. Everyone else does a pretty solid job outside of Sarah Silverman (I have no idea what she is trying to go for here but whatever it was it doesn't work).
The movie itself is beautifully done, the black and white portion of the film looks like you are looking through a very old photo album. Looking back at memories through the years, the color portion is just as strong with great use of color and combine that with the cinematography that does have some genuinely gorgeous shots. The music moments are also quite powerful, there's one in particular that's hands down the best part of the movie and is an example of some really strong acting and direction from Bradley Cooper.
The main problem here with Maestro is lack of gaining investment from the viewer and doesn't have quite the power it needs. It's quite clear that Cooper did not want to make this a traditional biopic as I said before. However I think he goes a little too far with this, we aren't given anything on Leonard Bernstein if you are unfamiliar with Bernstein or haven't heard of him that you are out of luck because this movie isn't going to tell you about his career. The movie itself is very focused on the marriage which is fine but it's not very investing and doesn't really capture what makes Bernstein so exciting. Which is a shame because there are some genuinely beautiful moments between Bernstein and Montealegre that really show during the music moments of the movie, showing just how important their marriage was. But a lot of the time it's way too slow and doesn't quite bring enough emotion to the table.
Maestro is not a bad movie don't get me wrong, it's just one that had a lot of potential but everything doesn't quite come together unfortunately. I'm sure there is an audience for this movie, this is just something that didn't quite click for me unfortunately.
Maestro is available on Netflix.
5/10 C
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