"Maestro", dir. Bradley Cooper

I remember the final years of Leonard Bernstein's life, he was the superstar classical conductor who was paradoxically famous for composing one of the most beloved musicals.  His life story was spectacular but wholly linear.  In Mahler's time, he too was considered to be a conductor first, and a composer a distant second.  As the decades passed, the narrative flipped.  The person and his art was out of step with the societal norms of his time.  

"Maestro" accomplishes two very remarkable things.  First, it prominently features Bernstein's compositions in the soundtrack.  It showcases his remarkable flexibility as a composer, ranging from campy musical theatre to serious symphonic tours de force.  Overloading the soundtrack with pieces from the standard repetoire, from Mozart, Beethoven, or Haydn (Bernstein was an outstanding conductor of all three) would have been a safe and easy choice.  By placing his music front and centre, the movie makes the case that Bernstein was one of the most dynamic 20th century composers, and in my opinion it largely succeeds.  

Second, it presents Bernstein's struggle with his homosexuality and his struggles with his personal creativity as two sides of the same coin.  Actually, "struggle" is a bit misleading.  Bernstein knew exactly who he was in his personal life, and knew exactly who he was as a composer.  The problem was in how to present these facets in public.  Attempting to conform to what was expected of him, as a husband/father and as an artist, was a ongoing battle that was never resolved in his lifetime.  

"Maestro" isn't a biopic in that there is no attempt to highlight the key moments and accomplishments in Bernstein's life, no gimmicky "fly on the wall" recreations save for a brief snippet of his NY Phil conducting debut and the final six minutes of Mahler's "Resurrection" Symphony from Ely Cathedral with the LSO.  The latter essentially packs all of the reenactions into a single epic take.  The music and the setting is magical, although Cooper's conducting is unnecessarily histrionic, even for a Bernstein imitation.  I know the video and audio recording of that performance quite well, Cooper takes it a bit too far, perhaps the only time in the movie where he doesn't completely nail his subject.  Consider the difficulty of Cooper's task, in playing Bernstein at ages 25, 35, 45, 55, and 65, adapting flawlessly to the changes in his voice and mannerisms over those decades.

Thus, Bernstein's prodigious career accomplishments are downplayed, and the movie really focuses on his fascinating and complex relationship with his wife Felicia. It might be the best love story I have even seen in a music-centred movie.