If Bradley Cooper's Maestro is about anything that you can be sure of, it's acting. Cooper loves displaying the acting prowess of his cast, so much so that the performances eclipse almost everything else in the film. This is why when Leonard Bernstein first appears on the screen, you don't actually see Bernstein, but you observe Cooper's makeup, inflection, and...acting. You are more impressed by the exterior embellishments than the interior turmoil. It doesn't matter to you that Leonard is sad during the interview. What you take away from this opening is that the rest of the film will have a similar air of showboating. And indeed, the technique ends up overpowering the emotions. The fancy transitions appear more magical than Leonard's love, life, and music.
Cooper shows a very narrow range as a filmmaker. This is evident in the way he chooses what to depict and what to omit from the screen. Cooper puts his character, Leonard, on a pedestal, presenting him as a musical prodigy. Yet, he never tells us what precisely makes Leonard a genius. Where does the music come from? What inspires him? He finds success through luck, as Bruno Walter's illness allows him to make his conducting debut with the Philharmonic. The audience in the movie is spellbound by his skill, but we don't experience the bliss. As a result, we fail to grasp what's so special about this guy. Leonard, in the movie, is great because Bernstein, in real life, was brilliant. That's all the reason Maestro gives to justify the character's talent on the screen.
There is only one scene where we observe Leonard conducting for more than just a few seconds. However, even then, we merely admire Cooper's wonderful imitation of a famous musician. We watch him and think, "This man has done his homework. He might have gone through hours and hours of footage of Bernstein performing." Maybe since Cooper is an actor himself, the acting is what he mainly manages to bring to the foreground with heavy underlining. While watching Maestro, you are always aware of the fact that everyone is performing. Someone as exceptional as Carey Mulligan, too, fails to disappear behind her character's skin. Maestro might just be an arty appeal to the Academy that the actors in this film are award-worthy.
As a director, Cooper manages to create some stunning images. In one scene near the beginning, a window looks like a stage viewed from a balcony seat. In another, Leonard places a pillow over his mouth to muffle his cries. These images evoke strong feelings from within but seem to exist in isolation. Nothing about them registers as organic. It all feels like visual posturing. That muffled cry or that shot of Leonard and Felicia (Mulligan) spooning when the latter is sick could have been powerful emotionally. However, this romantic relationship progresses rapidly and is so light it slips from between our fingers. Alcohol and affairs put stress on this relationship, which Cooper depicts through serious expressions that simply fail to add any weight to the drama. We are once again reminded how good these actors can be. When Felicia watches Leonard with a face that swings between artificial happiness and genuine bitterness, you silently applaud Mulligan for her superb skills.
Cooper's limitations as a filmmaker can also be seen in his limited approach to this story. Leonard has three kids, and none of them are given the opportunity to express their point of view regarding their parent's relationship. We just get one scene where Leonard clears Jamie's (Maya Hawke) doubts about certain rumors about him. When Felicia's health deteriorates, we don't see how her children deal with this difficulty. The things Cooper focuses on are so generic and attention-seeking that they don't illuminate the main character prodigiously. The actors are used as actors. They never become a character. Hence, you don't believe in remarks like the one made by Felicia where she tells Leonard that for four years, he couldn't decide whether he wanted to marry her (in the film, they fall for each other and become husband and wife very smoothly). Maestro, ultimately, is a shallow biopic. It opens with the quote, "A work of art does not answer questions; it provokes them, and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers." The movie neither provokes nor makes us ask any important questions. You only wonder if Cooper or Mulligan would win awards for their performance in this film.
Final Score- [5.5/10]
Reviewed by - Vikas Yadav
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Publisher at Midgard Times