Maestro (2023)

Detailed and Passionate Biopic - Maestro review by GI

Bradley Cooper directs and stars in this biopic of the great American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein. Utilising a mix of black and white and colour and changing screen ratios this is clearly a passion piece with Cooper fully inhabiting the role with excellent prosthetics. The narrative focuses on his complex relationship with his wife, Felicia (Carey Mulligan), a Costa Rican actress. This is clearly a heartfelt and slightly exhausting film, it certainly tested my patience on a few occasions, with its long conversation scenes and characters that drift in and out of the story. Cooper captures Bernstein's heady obsession with his art and ultimately the film is about sacrifice for art's sake unflinchingly dealing with Bernstein's dalliances with young men. A candid depiction of a great artist in a production that is vast, almost epic, but you have to be invested in wanting to know about the subject. The two leads are excellent but the film just indulges itself a little too much for my taste.