Unlike other biopics, ‘Maestro’, based on legendary American music conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein’s life, is not a Wikipedia of his achievements. It instead focuses largely on his relationships.
Bradley Cooper has directed and co-written the story, in which he also plays Bernstein, embodying his mannerisms and
likeness (including the controversial prosthetic nose) quite well.
One unexpected call lands Bernstein his major conducting debut. A meet-cute between him and aspiring actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan) follows and then marriage and three children, all captured beautifully in black and white. Bernstein has dalliances with men, something Felicia is aware of but doesn’t protest. The fissure in their marriage widens when Bernstein’s spiralling popularity overshadows Felicia — her career, her being, her faith in him and the family she’s built.
Bernstein’s own life is consumed by drugs and his struggles with bisexuality. In a scene, we see him seated on a swing, next to David Oppenheim, a clarinet player whom he had an affair with sporadically. There is a tenderness in their eyes, but also helplessness. In another scene, Bernstein blames the ‘rumours’ his daughter has been hearing about him on ‘jealousies’. Cooper’s performance flits between effortless and slightly laboured but he peaks in this scene, depicting Bernstein’s anguish and guilt through his eyes before finding words. However, it is Carey who sparkles consistently, as Felicia in love and suffering.
‘Maestro’ falters in the second half. It reduces Felicia to a forlorn wife and then a cancer patient when she was also a great artiste. Yet again, a film paints a woman as a pitiable figure and a man as a conflicted genius. Worse, the film doesn’t fully probe Bernstein’s inner conflicts and how they shaped his art.
What the film does get right is that relationships aren’t perfect.
Published 05 January 2024, 19:40 IST