Cooper. Mulligan. Bernstein. Get ready for one exhilarating magnum opus! Courtesy of Netflix.It’s finally here! The movie everyone has been talking and also lamenting about for months and months! The movie…with Bradley Cooper’s…FAKE. NOSE. Yes, it’s true. In MAESTRO, Bradley Cooper’s latest Oscar contender which recently premiered at Philly’s own 32nd Philadelphia Film Festival this year, the actor co-writes, directors, and portrays iconic composer Leonard Bernstein. Not since Nicole Kidman’s fake nose in The Hours (2002) has the media been so obsessed with movie prosthetics. For Nicole, however, people were just goofing around. (That was the 2000s. The times were different.) Remember too that the woman she portrayed, Virginia Woolf, wasn’t Jewish. Bernstein was, however, and in a year/decade of endless social media tirades one after the other, people weren’t too happy when the first photos were released of MAESTRO, showing Cooper with his costar, Carey Mulligan…and his rather large nose.
THE NOSE. Everything is about this nose! What do I have to say about this controversy? Is this antisemitism in the flesh? Should this movie be canceled? Just my opinion: no. Absolutely not. Absolutely never. Cooper’s decision to transcend himself physically into Bernstein is not meant to be a joke. He isn’t mocking the conductor. If he had the nose and no other makeup, maybe so, but that’s not the case. The fact that I have to even begin this blog post with talking about a prosthetic so much makes me roll my eyes. I remember years and years ago, I was watching an episode of Ally McBeal where a man loves his huge nose so much that he wants to imitate Barbra Streisand, also a Jewish person. (And let’s not forget Robin Williams’s fake nose moment in Mrs. Doubtfire (1993) where he sings “Don’t Rain on My Parade.”) THOSE moments are a little cringey to watch all these years later. MAESTRO isn’t like that. This is a serious work of art about a genius, a loving, carefree, vivacious, positively exceptional man with a vision like none other. (And if you want to continue the nose discussion, I recommend reading what Bernstein’s real children have to say about it in Vanity Fair. Spoiler: they’re OK with it.)
Anyway! Now that that’s done, let’s talk about this spectacle of a movie. This is Cooper’s second film as a director after 2018’s Oscar-winning A Star Is Born. This time around, the Philly native plays a lot more with style and cinematography. He did this a little bit in A Star Is Born, such as the sequences where he filmed the musical performances directly onstage facing Lady Gaga and him. We only hear the audience, a trick we barely ever see in musical films. Cooper maximizes his aesthetic in MAESTRO, crafting visually exhilarating moments that feel like they’re right out of Moulin Rouge (2001) or some other magnum opus. The music, the lights, the colors… All of it is magnificent to witness on a large screen. (I’ll bold this: do NOT wait for Netflix on your TV. See MAESTRO on the big screen!)
Co-written with Oscar winner Josh Singer (Spotlight), another Philly native, MAESTRO begins the old-fashioned, biographical way with an elderly Bernstein playing at his piano in his sprawling New England home for a group of reporters. He is preparing to talk about how he became the one-and-only Leonard Bernstein, the Emmy/Tony/Grammy Award winner we’ve all heard of and love, especially if you work for a Jewish arts organization. We soon cut to the past, in literal black and white (huge kudos to cinematographer Matthew Libatique). It’s early morning in a bedroom. The curtains are down. A phone rings, and a young Bernstein speaks on it. He is told good news. All of a sudden, one of Bernstein’s scores BLARES. He opens the curtains to let in light, revealing a naked man in the bed beside him. Like something out of a trippy dream, Bernstein races out of the bedroom and appears next running through the aisles of a gargantuan musical hall as the camera raises itself higher and higher. It’s just one of many unbelievable moments in MAESTRO¸ a movie lover’s dream.
Now, with any biographical movie, I always prefer when it tackles a particular moment or period in the person’s life. MAESTRO does just that by tapping less into exploring all of Bernstein’s life and homes in especially on his rocky relationship with his wife, Felicia Montealegre (Mulligan). Montealegre, a beautiful, delightful television actress, is instantly smitten by Bernstein’s genius and charisma. He is pretty much portrayed as the most popular man in the world amongst his friends, throwing fancy parties with piano players, glasses of hard liquor, and approximately 200,000,000 cigarettes. (Truly, I had NEVER seen a movie with so much cigarette-smoking until MAESTRO.) A lothario himself, he is obviously a smooth talker with Montealegre, flirting with her in respectful ways before they hit the bedroom.
The two, as you can probably guess, are soon married with children. Bernstein’s career blossoms while his wife’s…well, you’ll see. For Montealegre, she is not so much jealous of her husband’s status but frustrated with his unfaithful relationships. We see very early on in the film that Bernstein is sexually fluid, sleeping with his own friends, male or female, all the time. One beautiful aspect of this love story is how Montealegre has no issues with Bernstein’s sexuality from the get-go. Her husband loves life. He sleeps with everyone because he loves to have a good time. He just loves to have a good time. She sees this and probably loves that the most about him. Continuing to sleep with other folks while married, however, is another matter.
It’s a crazy thing to realize how “popular” martial infidelity was back in the day. If you read any old celebrity biography, there was cheating involved. Always. In MAESTRO¸ the cheating is portrayed as just that, a common thing. When Montealegre discovers her husband kissing another man at a party, she simply returns to the other guests. This is just another annoying moment for her, another unfortunate flaw of Bernstein. His zest for life and laughter has a boundary that he won’t comply with.
Despite the cheating, Bernstein was always there for his wife. Cooper doesn’t portray the composer in the greatest light because nobody is perfect. Bernstein did lie and cheat. He wasn’t the best husband. Nevertheless, a million parties and hook-ups couldn’t change the way he felt about his wife and family. MAESTRO sheds light on not just the musical talent of Bernstein but his complicated personality. As a viewer, you do just want to shake him sometimes. He is a frustrating guy at times. We’ve seen plenty of times how fame changes people. There was, however, a deep humanity inside of Bernstein that we can’t deny.
It’s obvious to say that Cooper and Mulligan are simply outstanding here. These are trained actors, and I don’t even know if there’s such a thing as a “bad Cooper performance” or “bad Mulligan performance.” Mulligan, who even has first listing on the poster of the film, gives one of her best roles. As Montealegre, she is fragile yet fierce and independent. Cooper truly does lose himself as Bernstein. I don’t know how many hours of footage he watched of the conductor’s performances, but MY GOD, he perfects it. The swinging of his arms. His facial mannerisms. The sweat pouring from his face while his orchestra blasts his music. It’s a performance for the ages, and absolutely Cooper’s most intense, dedicated role.
If you made it to the bottom of this review, that means I hopefully didn’t annoy you with the “nose” controversy, which I did feel needed to be stated. Try not to let social media ruin a movie as stupendous as MAESTRO. See it on the big screen. Feel your seat vibrate to the music. This holiday season, witness the life of this extraordinary legend.
MAESTRO is now in theaters and streams on Netflix December 20, 2023.