Rating: R
Runtime: 2 hours, 9 minutes
Writers: Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer
Music By: Leonard Bernstein
Director: Bradley Cooper
Quick Impressions:
Maybe I was fooled into thinking Lydia Tár was a real person for at least three hours. And maybe I don’t know how to clean a bassoon properly or who sings the pop songs that aren’t on our playlist. And maybe everyone I’ve ever met knows more about music than I do…
(Gosh, I hope I’m going somewhere with this!)
Oh yeah!
Even I know Leonard Bernstein!
And not just from REM lyrics. Like most people, I’ve enthusiastically watched On the Town and West Side Story and hummed my appreciation for days after every viewing. Plus, I remember reading casual anecdotes about “Lenny” in Lauren Bacall’s delightful books. And back when Lydia Tár was totally real to me, she bragged about her equally totally real relationship with “Lenny” ad nauseam. So yeah, I do know Leonard Bernstein (though, admittedly, not as well as Lauren Bacall or even Lydia Tár).
What I didn’t know is that this movie is streaming on Netflix, so I didn’t have to get so excited when I discovered it playing at a movie theater across town. The popcorn was good, though, so I can’t complain about the out-of-the-way excursion.
Before the movie, I said to my husband, “Besides his music, all I really know about Leonard Bernstein is…” The plot to this movie! (That really surprised me!)
What mainly stuck in my memory about Bernstein is something that involves Maya Hawke’s character. I didn’t expect that to be the thrust of what the movie gives us. I was surprised Maestro didn’t give me a different (or more nuanced) sense of Bernstein. Admittedly, I didn’t know he always left the door open while using the bathroom—even at work!—because he was so afraid to be alone. I don’t remember Lauren Bacall mentioning that! (But she probably did! There should be a coffee table book called The Eccentric Bathroom Habits of Great Men. Bernstein and LBJ would make the cut for sure.)
Admittedly, the film does offer that sort of nuance. I’m always so attuned to narrative. But perhaps it was naïve of me to expect a plot crammed full of events. I do think Maestro gives us a sense of Bernstein by scoring his life with his own music, what would have been crowding his head at all moments. The make-up is magnificent, too. And the performances are exceptional.
Superficially, Maestro reminds me a bit of De-Lovely. (Popular bisexual American composer in love with his wife but always having casual affairs with men writes music used in the movie). But this film has a less conventional visual aesthetic, pretty amazing make-up, and killer performances by Bradley Cooper and (especially) Carey Mulligan. Promising Young Woman made me a fan of Mulligan whose versatility is on display here. She’s honestly my favorite part of the film. Someone could have taken the events depicted in this story and made a film exactly like De-Lovely, but that’s not the film Bradley Cooper made.
The Good:
You know, I like Bradley Cooper. I thought his portrayal of a man with bipolar disorder in Silver Linings Playbook was pretty good. (I have Bipolar I, and it complicates life. I’m currently frustrated that my mental health takes so much maintenance. Managing it is like a full-time job. Now that my children aren’t babies, I want to meet their changing needs and focus more on career. Surely maintaining my own mental health isn’t a career, yet it seems to require the focus, time, and energy a career would. When I try to step up and take on more responsibilities, my brain attacks me. If I don’t devote enough focus to my mental health, my illness pulls focus. That’s so frustrating.)
Obviously, my own mental health has nothing to do with Leonard Bernstein. But Bradley’s Cooper’s work in Silver Linings Playbook is relevant to his work on this film. Even more relevant is his work on A Star is Born (since he directed that). In roles like these, Cooper demonstrates compassion and empathy for people living outside the box (less by choice than necessity. They don’t fit in the box. They have trouble finding their way in, and they keep falling out). Cooper plays characters who are suffering (and perhaps also cause suffering) with dignity and charm.
A Star is Born was the soundtrack of our car for a ridiculously long time (like a year and a half!). Clearly, Cooper loves music. Because I’m so driven by written narrative (a limitation of mine), I’m always impressed when others can convey meaning through images, music, dance. That’s what Cooper gives us here—images and music. The film advances in an impressionistic way. The plot is secondary to the reality of the man (a man who loved beautiful people and intense music). (At least, that’s by his own self-report. Others might say a man who uses the toilet with the door open at work has boundary issues.)
Cooper makes a memorable Leonard Bernstein. Though I don’t know Lenny like Lauren Bacall (or even Lydia Tár), Cooper captures him reasonably well based on the recordings of Bernstein I’ve seen. (His muffled, mumbly speech seems more extreme than the real Bernstein’s to me, but that may be the theater’s sound, my congested ears, or the fact that in most professional recordings available to watch, Bernstein’s not at a cocktail party at his house.) Cooper captures Bernstein’s unique cadence and mannerisms in a careful, mannered way, but he also manages to convey the man’s joy (and depression), which requires a different kind of acting.
His make-up is stunning. (I can’t say that enough!) He’ll probably get nominated for Best Actor, but I would rather see him nominated for Best Director. He missed that nomination for A Star is Born. Based on the collective strength of the performances of Lady Gaga and Carey Mulligan, though, I’d say he must be doing something right behind the camera.
The film deserves a nomination for make-up, too. Mulligan’s is even more impressive than Cooper’s. Because of Bernstein’s always-on personality, Cooper’s Bernstein grows older so dramatically (the way he does everything). But Mulligan’s character is just quietly aging. The actress is only thirteen years older than Maya Hawke (who plays the couple’s oldest child), but by the end of the film, Mulligan seems easily thirty years older than Hawke. Yet she doesn’t seem decrepit or excessively wrinkled. She’s a lovely, vibrant woman—just older than her daughter. Even when she becomes ill, the make-up is so unobtrusive .It’s great, subtle work by both Carey Mulligan and the make-up team. Surely Mulligan’s performance—buoyed by her fantastic make-up and well-written dialogue—will get her a nomination for Best Actress this year. Of the performances I’ve seen, I’d nominate Lily Gladstone, Emma Stone, Margot Robbie, and Mulligan. (I know that’s only four, but I still haven’t seen so many likely contenders, and any of those four would deserve to win.)
For me, Carey Mulligan kind of steals the movie. Ultimately I’m not that interested in Bernstein, but I’m now terribly interested in his wife. The second half of the movie gives her more and more “Oscar moment” type scenes. You could cut out Bernstein, and I’d happily watch the remaining movie about Felicia. Perhaps because she’s far less famous, Felicia is the character I felt like I was truly discovering while watching Maestro.
The supporting cast made us happy, too. I was thrilled when I recognized Maya Hawke before seeing her face. Normally, I hear someone’s voice and puzzle, “Where do I know that voice from?” for at least an hour. But I placed her right away probably because my daughter is slightly obsessed with Maya Hawke. Robin has been her Stranger Things crush for years. When we got home and shared this exciting news, she gushed, “Oh I love Maya Hawke!” (No way!) I love Maya Hawke, too. She brightens up any scene. In fact, I’m realizing now, she’s my favorite actor in her family (which is saying something since I was a teen in the 90s). And my husband was thrilled—thrilled!—to recognize Sarah Silverman who plays Bernstein’s sister. (On the other hand, he gasped in surprise when Mulligan’s name appeared in the end credits. When we first met, he wondered if he was face blind.)
Both Matthew Libatique’s cinematography and the film’s music are excellent. I’m a sucker for captivating shot composition, and Maestro certainly has that. (To me, the shot composition is more interesting than the film’s conspicuous use of both black-and-white and color.) And, of course, the music is great! It’s all Leonard Bernstein (except when he’s conducting classical pieces or dancing at a club) (and in one late moment where he—ever modest—is driving around in a car blasting “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).” Movies like this always work better when the production has permission to use the work that made the artist famous.)
The plot is a bit sparse, but what we do get is unobtrusively engaging. My husband had trouble hearing Cooper clearly but said he still felt he had the sense of every scene. He compared the experience to reading a picture book or watching a Robert Altman film. (Comprehending overlapping dialogue is always difficult for him because he’s hard of hearing.) He often couldn’t understand what Cooper was saying, but he was still following the relationship dynamics and the progression of the marriage.
Watching the middle of Maestro is a little bit like being dragged through a dizzying cocktail party as a child or in a fugue state. Life with Bernstein looks like one exhausting, unending cocktail party. I’d be so out of my depth. I kept musing, “I don’t think I could have stayed married to him,” but, in fairness, I’m sure he never would have married me. I’m drawn to his eccentricity, but his sophisticate’s lifestyle would trigger a frantic pretense of “being cool” from me. (“Well, Mr. Bernstein, I was just at a cocktail party on both coasts simultaneously. That’s all I do—fly from coast to coast, having cocktails and affairs. You conducted Beethoven’s Ninth? Well, I wrote Beethoven’s Tenth! Did you think I was born yesterday?”) It takes someone special to marry Leonard Bernstein. But is anyone special enough to survive that marriage?
The conflict that unfolds in this love story is simple enough—and predictable to everyone but the people living it. Bernstein and Felicia seem to have a less clear-cut arrangement than the couple in De-Lovely, and watching their marriage slowly unravel, then dramatically come back together again is plot enough for any movie.
I’m always interested in explorations of conventionality. At first, Bernstein and Felicia appear to be completely honest with each other, which I can respect. I tell my husband everything—in real time! (I’m working on that.) (“I took another breath. Now I blinked. I think I blinked too hard. My eye feels weird now. What should I do?”) But as the story progresses, we see this couple is not being honest with each other about being honest with each other. Their expectations are radically misaligned.
They’re doing honesty wrong. She’s not being entirely honest with him or with herself. (She later tells us this directly, though I do think taking someone at their self-report is perhaps unfair.) And his idea of being honest is, “I cannot tell a lie. I’m shooting you in the face right now. Thank me for my honesty.”
As a gut reaction, I’m naturally more sympathetic to Felicia. His behavior is inconsiderate and selfish. Still, I always try to compensate for my own reactions, knowing my limitations. I’m not very worldly, you know. (Shh. I don’t really attend simultaneous bi-coastal cocktail parties. That’s just what I tell Leonard Bernstein!) I strongly feel Bernstein and his wife can do whatever they want, not whatever I want. But by natural inclination, my sympathies lie with Felicia. To a point.
On the other hand, she married him. (And the way he treats Matt Bomer’s character should be a big clue to her about how he’ll treat her.) (My heart broke for Bomer’s character in that scene! Bernstein is such an oblivious jerk!) But why does Felicia insist Bernstein lie to his own daughter about who he is? He is who he is. Why shouldn’t his children know who he is? I do think he should have sense enough not to make out with random guys in their family home. I don’t know what exactly their arrangement is, but it can’t be that! (“I vow to love, honor, and embarrass you in front of all of our friends!”) But I don’t like the way she’s always throwing conventionality in his face to cover jealousy or using the children’s imagined horror to keep him in line. (That’s why I really love her scene in the restaurant so much. That scene plays like an Oscar clip, and Carey Mulligan keeps getting better and better!)
I’m torn because I can’t tell if Felicia is truly begging for fidelity or merely for the pretense of fidelity, and bowing to conventionality for its own sake rankles me. Conventionality often fails me. Conventionality says, “Wake up at 7:30 every morning,” but my body says, “You need eight hours of sleep, and I’m going to choose when I fall asleep, Sarah. Not you. And not convention.” It’s so frustrating. You can set an alarm to wake up, but there’s no alarm that makes you fall asleep. Sometimes conventionality only serves you if you fit inside the box. Of course, is that any excuse to make-out with random guys in your family home right in front of your wife’s face? No. Bernstein’s inconsiderate obliviousness is his own fault. Maybe my recent manic episode is Bernstein’s fault, too. We can always hope.
One thing I love about Maestro is that it makes Bernstein’s life look so ordinary. His music is remarkable, yes. But if you watched the film on mute, you would see the story of a man who liked sleeping with everyone, finally settled down with a woman, cheated on her with multiple men, became outrageous about this during his mid-life crisis, loved his children, reconciled with his wife, stood by her when she became ill, grieved when she died, and then ended up going back to his original lifestyle, relieved to have nothing to hide. Bernstein is remarkable because of his music. His life is as commonplace as they come.
Best Action Sequence:
I love the On the Town courtship sequence, the mad rush on the stage. For me, the entire first half of the film could be distilled into that sequence. I wish the rest of the movie were a bit more like this, to be honest.
Best Scene Visually:
I’m sure I would fight with my husband more often if we had a place with two enormous windows that looked out on the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. Now I know why we never fight. If an enormous Snoopy is not passing by in the background, what is even the point? This scene drives home so many points visually—those two enormous parallel windows, the massive spectacle (commonplace to them). What a fantastic scene! I could watch it a thousand times. I’m sure at some point the Oscars will treat us to a clip package of couples’ arguments. This one should be in there for sure.
(It also makes me think of Miracle on 34th Street. Felicia’s a little like Doris Walker, here, not in the mood for her husband’s fanciful self-delusions.)
Best Scene:
I love the moment when Felicia, her daughter, and her sister-in-law meet for lunch, and the prospect of a new romance fades into a sad discussion of her broken marriage. Mulligan is brilliant in this scene. I know I was just complaining about Felicia’s vexing adherence to conventionality. But here she reveals she’s not really upset about people talking. She’s upset about her husband cheating on her all the time, and she’s even more upset that she is upset by that and that she’s tried not to admit it to herself. We get the idea that Bernstein was honest about his needs, but Felicia was not honest about hers. (We get that idea from Felicia because she says so directly. Of course, it’s not fair to judge people by their own self-assessments.) (I still prefer her, though.) It’s a beautifully acted scene.
Cooper has a similarly nice moment when he has a heart-to-heart with Maya Hawke, heartbreakingly lying to her much to her relief.
The Negatives:
Not much happens in this movie. I felt like I had already watched it before seeing it. I assure you, I know very little about Leonard Bernstein, but everything I already knew about him was in this movie (except that he used to stay up late hanging out with Lauren Bacall, prompting Humphrey Bogart to give up and go to bed).
You know, as I watched, I thought the movie was too uneventful, but I’m liking it more with distance. There’s something impressionistic about the way Bernstein’s life is conveyed to us that I’m finding really lovely. Honestly, the best thing about the movie is that his musical giftedness made him extraordinary, and Cooper is telling his life story through unconventional, highly artistic methods. But the life that is being revealed is, in fact, completely ordinary, so ordinary that we feel we’ve seen it many times before and know it all backwards and forwards.
It is quite hard to understand the dialogue at times, though. If I watch it again at home, I’ll turn on the subtitles. I guess the words don’t matter much. It’s really all about the music. (Plus, I’ve been congested for almost two months now. I can’t exactly blame this film for my full eustachian tubes.)
Overall:
I’m glad I saw Maestro in the theater because I think the music and the cinematography benefit from the big screen. Before the Oscars, I may watch it again on Netflix because I’d like to see if the small screen affects the sense of emotional intimacy we get from the story. Well, who am I kidding! I’ll watch again for sure. Anyone the slightest bit interested in Leonard Bernstein should see this movie.