As a Director, Bradley Cooper proves he's not a one-trick pony with his moving, soul shaking sophomore effort, MAESTRO.
I thought his Directorial debut with "A Star is Born" was startling in its confidence and style. But that pales compared to his new creation.
Transforming in look and voice into the first great American conductor/composer, Leonard Bernstein, Cooper gives his best performance to date.
And what a subject.
As the film opens, Bernstein takes a phone call in a darkened room, behind a curtain that I assumed was a stage. Due to another conductor's illness, he's given his first chance to conduct at Carnegie Hall. He pulls back the curtain to reveal that he's in a New York apartment and has left the bed of his lover David (Matt Bomer).
As the camera sweeps up to look down from above, Bernstein runs out of the apartment, down numerous hallways and he's suddenly tuxedo clad, walking onto the stage for his debut.
Cooper gets so many things right in the opening ten minutes.
The lighting and camera movements are brilliant, creating the first show of the momentum Cooper creates in his storytelling.
We see just a moment or two of Bernstein conducting in the passionate, BIG style, but the film focuses instead on the reactions, the instant stardom that descends.
At a party soon afterward, hosted by his sister Shirley (comedian Sarah Silverman, shockingly good) Lenny meets actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn.
Felicia is played by Carey Mulligan in a performance so strong that I'd bet the house she wins Best Actress next year at the Oscars. From her endearing introduction to Bernstein, to their whirlwind friendship and 25 year marriage, Mulligan is a powerhouse.
I expected the film to detail Bernstein's career, which it certainly does, but in a style wholly unexpected. Bernstein wrote the music for "West Side Story" but the premiere or show is never seen, it's referenced, and the opening, haunting moments of its overture are heard, but not in context to the show itself.
The film sometimes leaps decades, never losing us or its storytelling, because Leonard and Felicia are always at the core.
Felecia is well aware of Lenny's dual life. She's so caught up in their love that she accepts it. As society changes and the 50's and 60's move into the more accepting 70's and 80's, Lenny's dalliances are emboldened by the times.
Their young children become teenagers and young adults and rumors about their father swirl.
Mulligan and Cooper capture a couple in crisis and in love. Life and death challenges occur, but Felicia & Lenny are always connected. The temperature of that connection is film making at its best.
There are several standout moments in the film.
A fantasy sequence set to Bernstein's music for "On the Town" is fascinating and telling. Who's fantasy is it?
A Thanksgiving day scene in which Felicia confronts Lenny takes place in their massive New York City apartment, as the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Snoopy Balloon floats past outside towering windows. It's a stunner. Cooper seems to have mastered the gifts of Director Steven Spielberg, creating visual moments that impact the story but don't distract from the conversation within.
I don't remember the last movie I saw that understood the power of silence on this level. Cooper wields it masterfully. Conversations pause at pivotal moments. Quiet moments of pain and realization are played out perfectly. You could hear a pin drop in the theater numerous times.
But Cooper also unleashes the power of Bernstein's music and his conducting of masterworks as the counterpoint to his quiet moments.
In one long, single-shot sequence that will likely become a signature of Cooper's work as a director, Bernstein conducts the London Symphony Orchestra and chorus inside the ornate Ely Cathedral. As Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony #2 is performed, we see Bernstein conducting at length for the first time in the movie. In one continuous shot, the camera circles slowly, capturing Bernstein's conducting style in all its eccentric, passionate, fever-pitched intensity.
Cooper's performance in this six-minute scene is incredible. Like Daniel Day-Lewis in Spielberg's "Lincoln", Cooper becomes Bernstein. He studied conducting for six years to conduct that 6 minute and 21 second piece. As the music soars and builds, reaching new power every time you think it's reached its ultimate crescendo, you're pulled into one of the best moments in film this year.
The scene ends perfectly, with Felicia in the wings, solitary and moved by her husband. His movement to her in that moment, the second the music stops is powerful.
If the film ended there, I would have been content.
But it continues into Felicia and Lenny's later years, serving up redemption and loss in one powerful scene after another.
The chance to watch two adults having a powerful, unhurried conversation on the big screen seems like a gift in its simplicity.
Production design is first rate throughout and the sound design is terrific.
Steven Spielberg was originally slated to direct the film, but after seeing an early cut of "A Star is Born", Spielberg told Cooper, "You're directing Maestro".
With only two films on his resume, it might be too early to call MAESTRO Bradley Cooper's masterpiece, but it wouldn't be unwarranted.
MAESTRO soars to an A+ as one of the best films of 2023.
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