150 Word Review: 'Maestro' (2023)
And one for Mahler!
There's a scene in the charming 1987 comedy Roxanne where an oaf is hypnotized by witty romantic hero Steve Martin's Cyrano-sized nose, portrayed by an amusing prosthesis.
I felt like that oaf while watching director Bradley Cooper's Maestro, an evocative portrait of famed 20th-century conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Cooper also plays Lenny, first as an old lion covered in waxy makeup and then as a young man exploding with energy, wearing a distracting schnoz. Cooper's performance is joyful enough and doesn't need the unnecessary and alienating accessory.
Otherwise, Maestro surprises. I was expecting a standard biopic, but Cooper zooms in on Bernstein's complicated marriage to actress Felicia Montealegrem. So it's a love story. Carey Mulligan glows with patience and fury as Felicia who endures her husband's many affairs with men.
The movie thunders and whispers, oscillating between operatic and intimate. Cooper waits to reveal Bernstein's legendary charisma. He’s stunning.
I’m spending all my time trying to reconcile the makeup with what he really looked like, and it’s wildly distracting. Great acting, though.
I absolutely LOVED this movie.
My daughter has visited his grave. She likes to take walks in NYC cemeteries.