Jonah Naplan   December 2, 2023

One of the biggest surprises of “Maestro” is that the end credits list Carey Mulligan before they do Bradley Cooper. There’s a couple of ways this could be interpreted. The first one is obvious: Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic that he proudly directed, co-wrote, produced, and starred in is as much about the maestro as it is his beleaguered wife, Felicia Montealegre (an intense Carey Mulligan). The second reason is that Mulligan finds herself outshining Cooper in more ways than one whenever they share screentime, providing the film its strongest performance and emotional spine. The third is that there’s really no Lenny without Felicia, a character who transcends traditional notions of what a “supportive wife” in a biopic of an American luminary should look like. “Maestro” more or less interrogates how this woman, with talent in the arts herself, became dominated by the lucrative shadow of her husband, sort of like what Sofia Coppola’s “Priscilla” attempted, but in a far more thorough and affecting way.

It helps that Cooper’s film is an aesthetic feast, hopping between four different decades without ever dulling. The movie was shot by Oscar nominee Matthew Libatique, who was also cinematographer for Cooper’s directorial debut, “A Star is Born” (2018). Both of his movies traverse similar themes of stardom, grief, addiction, and depression, but not so much that they end up wallowing around in unearned sentiment that makes a movie preachier than it should be. Yes, “Maestro” is equally about Felicia as it is about Leonard, but it’s also about emotions, fame, passion, desire, and the impending urge to create something magnificent for future generations to admire.

Leonard Bernstein got there, but this movie about him never fully does. There’s probably a dozen really good individual things about it, and half a dozen you wish were, and could be, better. Some of its shortcomings, even major ones, feel like they might be intentional; such as skipping over long segments of his life to get to the next important event as a way of molding the narrative; not showing, briefly showing, or portraying in full number an aspect or aspects of his life to (legally) manipulate our perception of the man and his work; and romanticizing or downplaying politics, personal conflicts, and poor choices that backfire on characters decades after they made them.

“Maestro” also gives little distinct attention to any of Bernstein’s commercial pieces such as his work in “West Side Story,” “On the Waterfront,” and his television show “Young People’s Concerts,” which ran from 1958 to 1972, putting him on the market as both a virtuoso conductor and teacher of the form. What the film does instead, without shortchanging content for convenience, is tell the story of an artist longing for meaning, and terrified of existential loneliness (one character notes that Bernstein is the only person he knows who leaves the bathroom door open). Cooper’s terrific portrayal is like a two-way mirror; we can see a reflection of ourselves in his performance, but are never sure what’s unfolding on the other side, a facade with layers that progressively unravel as the film moves along.

And, as “Maestro” feasts on the dirt of time’s passage, different versions of Bernstein are shown wandering through various stages of life, sometimes physically aged by the years that have escaped them, or mentally matured by an event or the arrival of a new person that shifted their worldview on what they’re doing, why they’re doing it, or if they even know. The first scene shows a 70-year-old Bernstein giving an interview in his home in 1987, before jump- cutting 44 years earlier to the phone call that arguably changed the young musician’s life. In 1943, a 25-year-old Lenny was commissioned to sub-in last minute for Bruno Walter, conducting the New York Philharmonic at a packed Carnegie Hall without prior rehearsal. His remarkable performance made the front page of The New York Times the following day, ultimately kickstarting a campaign to grow as both a literary and corporeal force—it helps that the incredible music you’re conducting you actually wrote yourself.

With time, more Bernsteins start to pop up, either in the form of offspring—two children, Jamie (Maya Hawke) and Alexander (Sam Nivola)—or new incarnations of Lenny, who’ve formed because of regret, longing, or because Bernstein’s decided to leave his past at the door, looking forward instead of looking back. A painful goodbye to his past lover, a clarinetist and fellow performer at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, named David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), who was also the dean of the Tisch School of the Arts at New York University, is particularly instrumental in dictating Bernstein’s sexual identity. Then his wife Felicia complicates matters further. “Maestro” asserts that Bernstein is bisexual. Other sources would say he’s gay. His classification doesn’t matter, but how he acts on it does.

The script by Cooper and co-writer Josh Singer (“Spotlight”) portrays Bernstein as he slowly deteriorates into a sweaty, drug-addicted frenzy, barely upholstered by the burly strength of Felicia. Its peak comes at the intersection of his sanity and disarray; a recreation of Bernstein conducting the London Symphony Orchestra in Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in 1973, which established the composer’s awe in the afterlife and resurrection, at the Ely Cathedral. It’s a marvelous sequence with several astonishing, fleeting moments that are employed sparingly, your eyes never sure where to look. It is reported that Bradley Cooper spent six years studying under conducting consultant Yannick Nézet-Séguin to perfect this craft, and it’s surely comparable to the sublime work of Cate Blanchett in last year’s haunting (and musically accurate) “TÁR.”

If “Maestro” could be considered a cousin to Todd Field’s film, that’s because its characters are so alive, so tangible, so real. Still, as has been the case with most biopics as of late, the film suffers the double misfortune of a certain crucial dynamic not landing thematically in the way that it should, which negates its impact, especially in a third act that sequesters characters off in bold directions. It should feel more emotionally resonant than it actually does. The filmmaking on display here—wordless moments, song and dance bits—better depict the tumult of a struggle than any dialogue exchange. A splendid black-and-white showboat of Bernstein and Jerome Robbins’s “On the Town” is a standout, streaming figurative colors out of erotic visuals and noise.

When “Maestro” is taking place in the 40s or 50s, it has the look and feel of a film that was made then too. But the other decades, which first add color and then eventually more heft to the frame ratio, don’t possess the same effect, translating their consternation to a kind of mechanical artifice that’s as unreliable as Bernstein telling Jamie that the rumors she heard at Tanglewood aren’t true.

Mulligan will be the biggest takeaway for many people (and maybe for the Academy this spring, too), and her character is ultimately afforded the most rational avenue for the actress to play with. In a sense, she’s doing heavier lifting than her male counterpart by allowing herself an emotional vulnerability that the script does not ask from Cooper. She’s been nominated for two Best Actress Oscars in 2010 (“An Education”) and 2021 (“Promising Young Woman”), and is certain to receive another this year, possibly for the win. More than it does for Cooper, “Maestro” ends up as an affirmation that Mulligan is an extraordinary talent and a sight to see.

But with all its impressive party tricks, the most frustrating thing about “Maestro” is how little it seems to do with its leading man’s passion, a giant in a world of endless opportunity. It washes poor effects over the entire film. The mystery of music has been squandered by the media, and probably debunked too far just this year alone. There’s missed potential in a version of “Maestro” that could have refuted the quarrels, channeling a throughline that would not only pave an intriguing avenue for commentary, but honor the inquiry of Bernstein himself: “Why do so many of us try to explain the beauty of music, thus depriving it of its mystery?”

Now playing in select theaters. “Maestro” will be available on Netflix on December 20th.