It's worth noting that at this past weekend's screening of "Maestro" for members of the Motion Picture Academy, the filmmakers received a standing ovation when they came onstage for the Q&A afterward. This from a crowd of around 800 folks who actually know what it takes to make a film, are willing to make the trek across town, and are not an easy group to impress to that degree. A standing ovation from that crowd is a rare event. As others have noted, this is primarily a study of the relationship between two artists, one a well-regarded Broadway actress (played brilliantly by Carey Mulligan) and the other a once-in-a-generation musical genius. While others bemoan this approach to what some characterize as a biopic (it isn't really), I feel it was a smart way to let the audience in on Bernstein the man. Bernstein the musician is pretty easy to learn about - just check Wikipedia, YouTube and the gazillion recordings available. Many major filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese & Steven Spielberg, have tried tackling a "biopic" of Bernstein, and struggled on the best approach; Spielberg essentially handed the project to the fresh-off from "A Star is Born" Bradley Cooper when Steven learned of Cooper's passion from childhood for conducting and his fascination with Bernstein. It didn't hurt that Cooper, even without the brilliant prosthetics (approved by the Bernstein children), looks remarkably like Bernstein, and was able to get his voice, accent and speech patterns down so perfectly that if I closed my eyes at that screening I would have sworn I was hearing the Lenny Bernstein I grew up watching on TV. Cooper, growing by leaps and bounds as a filmmaker with this one, serves his actors brilliantly, and leaves the viewer with a palpable sense of what maestro Bernstein was like as a human, flaws and all.

See other user reviews