Maestro

Incredible performances and a strong story. Worthy of oscar consideration for sure.

Bradley Cooper’s best performance yet. He is enthralling in the role of composer and musician Leonard Bernstein. You won’t want to blink. Maestro follows the life of Bernstein and his wife Felicia (Carey Mulligan), as they fall in love, build their careers, raise a family, and face the trials of life. Mulligan meets Cooper’s acting skill line for line - I wasn’t sure who to pay closer attention to. Cooper’s mannerisms, voice and intonation, and Mulligan’s postures and expressions; the two make an impressive match on screen. The dedication and commitment to the role are overwhelming, most especially evident in the scene where we see him actually conducting a full orchestra to perform Mahler's Resurrection Symphony in a cathedral in England. CONTINUE READING ON LETTERBOXD: https://boxd.it/60pygv

A bizarre passion project that clearly had a lot of talent poured through, yet the movie loses sight of its focus and tonal consistency while missing out on some of the more interesting aspects of Bernstein’s life (such as his activism and his wife’s acceptance of his homosexuality) in what compiles as a talented, albeit misguided and somewhat corny movie that unintentionally falls into some of Hollywood’s all-to-common homophobic tropes when unintentionally framing his homosexuality as the root problem crumbling his otherwise happy marriage and family life; a personal moral obstacle he must overcome if you may will. All while ignoring his wife’s eventual acceptance of his sexual orientation and the happy relationships he found in his elder years. Bradley Cooper’s performance grows better over the course of the film, but my god is he corny for the first half of the film. That being said, the movie still engaged me and has plenty of solid filmmaking and acting in it to win me over.

No character development, no scene development so no point. Boring!

The whole production — directors, actors, scriptwriters — seem to forget why we have an interest in the biopic to begin with. Perhaps I’m out on the margins in this category, but I couldn’t care less about who celebs are taking to bed and what extracurricular activities they are engaged in during their off-time. We come for their extraordinary abilities and talents, so little of which is shown here. Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) was a virtuoso who dazzled as the conductor of the New York Philharmonic at only 25. And yet, we get nary a glimpse of that talent until 30 years later, when he leads Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in an iconic performance at the Ely Cathedral in England. This is what we came for! He’s a superstar living in the most expensive building in NYC (The Dakota) with a famous wife (Carey Mulligan) and as much prestige in elite society as one person can attain. But we’ve seen almost none of how he got there. This is one of those movies with excellent actors and performances, but a terrible script. With Tár’s success only last year, the time was ripe for a Bernstein biopic, but the opportunity was squandered by focusing on how many young men Bernstein coveted instead of his ravenous conducting style and musical acuity. I really do love Cooper in this movie, schnozole and all, but crave more of the feeling that Cathedral scene provided to me. If you’re not going to watch the movie in its entirety, that scene alone is worth your time.

Maestro is well-written, well acted and certainly well directed. It's artsy. It's a lot of fun. More than anything, the word that comes to mind when I reflect on my viewing experience of Maestro is impressive. Bradley Cooper knocked it out of the park with his performance in this picture. The fact that he wrote, directed and starred in Maestro is an unbelievable achievement. He spent six years learning how to conduct for this role and it shows. His portrayal of Leonard Bernstein is a once in a lifetime performance. I can't compliment Bradley Cooper's brilliance enough and if I had a vote on Best Actor at the Academy Awards, he would have gotten mine. Cillian Murphy was absolutely brilliant in Oppenheimer, but Cooper's performance is truly that great. As far as the story is concerned, it is well-written, like I said previously. It is somewhat limited to two aspects of Mr. Bernstein's life, his love life and his brilliant work. That isn't a knock on the story, just my honest opinion. I highly recommend Maestro to any and all lovers of cinema. 92/100

This film is led by Bradley Cooper performance who I think gave the best performance of his acting career. The film story reminds me of a Marriage Story but with more emphasis in the biopic format than the emotion. They are some scenes where is phenomenal but they are others where I think the novice of Cooper directing show where he try to be too artistic rather than let the film speak for itself kind of how Nolan does it. In the end, a good biopic that I would recommend to film lovers to see at least once.

Cinematography and acting was excellent. A-list actors. Builds up to a huge twist that keeps you on the edge of your seat wondering the outcome.

Absolute must see. Slow at the start, interesting film. I have never cried so hard at a film in my life! I thought it was going to be about music which is was but the love story seemed more the main theme. Loved it!

The highlights of this are the excellent performances by Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, and the score - the use of Bernstein’s music made it even more moving and playful. Also liked that how we see it is visually tailored to each era as we move through his life (e.g., when in the 40s, it looks like a movie from 1940). But, it’s not a knockout. I’ve been struggling with defining what was missing for me - maybe it was I just don’t care about LB, maybe it was we didn’t get to deeply KNOW him as a character, I don’t know. I just know I can’t rate it higher. “Who ABANDONED snoopy in the vestibule????” “You don’t even know how much you need me, do you?”