Maestro (2023)

My parents recommended this to me. I obliged partly because it was easy to find streaming. It actually has the lowest IMDb score of all current Best Picture nominees, but it still looked more promising for me personally than some of the others.

The story follows Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) from his big break conducting the New York Philharmonic in the 1940s to a retrospective interview in the 1980s, with a bit of skipping. The emphasis lies on his relationship with Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), whom he marries and has three kids with despite his preference for men. She's not just a "beard" to him; he does love her, at least sometimes. But his extramarital affairs aren't discreet enough to prevent rumors, and they and his heavy smoking and drinking start to drive a wedge between him and Felicia.

I was previously acquainted with several Bernstein compositions but needed reminders of what they were. This picture touches on a few: On the Town, Candide, and most famously West Side Story. Bernstein himself, as portrayed herein, is disappointed in how little he's done over the decades. I'm more disappointed that we don't get to see more of the creation process. Yes, it would expand to a less comfortable length than 129 minutes, but bios really should stress how someone made it big. As it is, the most we get are a fanciful OtT dance sequence and the conducting of Gustav Mahler's Resurrection Symphony, suggesting that he contributed more as a conductor than as a composer.

This is the second feature that Cooper has directed, and I can't help thinking he makes some rookie mistakes. The cinematography in particular feels inconsistent in arbitrary ways. Making only the earlier era black and white would be more sensible if it took up more of the runtime or involved more potentially confusing time jumps. Some scenes have a nice moving perspective, yet some long dialogs (which are not all that quotable) keep the camera still to the point of claustrophobia. I found myself looking away from the screen a lot to do other things by the third act. From what I can tell, I didn't miss much by merely listening.

Good acting? I suppose. But Maestro is so simple and unengaging to me that I'm ending this review faster than usual. You may differ if you're more of a Bernstein fan or simply into stories of troubled love lives.