Watching Bradley Cooper’s years-in-the-making Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro, I was unfortunately reminded of 2012’s Hitchcock, a would-be glimpse at the fraught drama behind-the-scenes over the making of Psycho but instead was mostly about whether or not Hitchcock’s marriage was going to work out. It was a bizarre creative choice, one where I said that the filmmakers managed to find “the least interesting and essential angle” and squandered the dramatic appeal of its own material. I don’t know what Cooper, who stars as Bernstein but also directs and co-wrote the script, was going for here as the movie does very little to communicate the genius or legacy of this composer. If you knew nothing about Lenny Bernstein, you’d walk away from the two hours of Maestro primarily remembering two things: 1) he was bisexual, and 2) his wife (Carey Mulligan) had a rough time of it. It’s another in the line of curious biopics of queer historical figures that choose to rather emphasize the experiences of the long-suffering-yet-dutiful spouse (The Danish Girl), which is a wealthy dramatic perspective to explore but shouldn’t there be more focus on the queer icons in their own movies? They had a complicated marriage and an arrangement where Lenny could explore his passions in many senses. This tentative understanding definitely leads to tension and blow-out fights in their relationship, but then why doesn’t the movie spend more time reflecting why this is, the strain of Lenny having to repress his sexuality amidst his celebrity? There’s one strong moment of struggle where Lenny has to assure his teenage daughter that, despite the rumors of her summer camp, he is not gay. It’s like watching part of him die in that moment and made me wonder even more why this repressed identity didn’t factor into more of the plot. We have characters falling over one another to congratulate Lenny on his genius and importance but the movie seems to assume you already know enough about this man, weirdly gliding over his life’s accomplishments and their impact. I’m not a fan of biopics that rush through a figure’s accomplishments like an abbreviated Wikipedia article, but at least that maximal approach makes you understand why this person was deserving of their own movie. Maestro strangely strips away the important context of its star, from his works in musical theater to his hand in the resurgence of classical music, to even his own repression of his identity. It makes the movie feel like a series of scenes lacking form, where life can suddenly become a confusing visual fantasy while we’re also jumping through time. Thankfully, the acting is the saving grace of the film. Cooper (A Star is Born) is magnificent and Mulligan (Saltburn) is equally so, and they’re terrific together. The best acted scene for Cooper happens to be his conducting of a musical piece inside a church, and supposedly Cooper spent six years in preparation to authentically conduct this moment. It’s technically impressive but I can’t help but wondering if this obsessive focus was misapplied. Rather than simply relying upon acting out the moment, maybe we could have given more exploration of who these people were rather than learning how better to disguise going through the motions. Maestro is, unfortunately, a miss.

Nate’s Grade: C+