Review Roundup: Bradley Cooper's 'Maestro' Wows Venice

With the trio of late summer film festivals (Telluride, Venice and Toronto), the parade of prestige films looking for award glory are screening. Already at Telluride "All of Us Strangers," Andrew Haigh's poignant queer romance, is getting raves. (For a review roundup, click here.)

Premiering at Venice is "Maestro," Bradley Cooper's biopic of Leonard Bernstein, which he co-wrote, directed and starred in, premiered. Cooper's sophomore directorial effort garnered some unwarranted attention lately when it was revealed that prosthetics were used to create Bernstein's large nose to make Cooper look Jewish. (Cooper is not.) Overnight, came "Nosegate."

But, as Rachel Handler writes in The Insider, the nose "is a little bit distracting in its hugeness, but only for a few minutes at the beginning of the movie and then after that in moments of direct sunlight, and only because Bradley Cooper already has kind of a big nose, so what are we even doing here, exactly?"

The issue over Cooper's nose may have subsided, but the topic of whether a straight actor should play a gay (or in Bernstein's case, bisexual) man has yet been addressed. Will it become an issue as the film heads to general release?

Handler also offered some of the first commentary on the film itself. "I happened to like 'Maestro,' finding it sensitive and stirring if uneven, and occasionally transcendent, mostly whenever Carey Mulligan is on-screen as Bernstein's wife, the incredibly named Felicia María Cohn Montealegre. I like that Cooper is developing a signature style, and a penchant for making devastating and complex romances wherein one party dies tragically, for playing extremely tan musicians who blow coke in the daytime to signify rock-bottom, for inserting into his features several scenes of tormented men sitting gloomily at their pianos. I like that Cooper goofily humanizes Bernstein by showing him taking shits with the bathroom door open, or wearing embarrassing-Jewish-intellectual-dad things like a Harvard sweatshirt with the word 'Harvard' written in Hebrew."

Here is a sample of other reviews from Venice:

The Wrap, Ben Croll

"Easily clearing the sophomore slump and proving that 2018's surprisingly vibrant 'A Star is Born' was hardly a one-off, Bradley Cooper's 'Maestro' bolsters the writer/director/producer/star's MO as a contemporary jack-of-all-trades with an Old Hollywood soul. Hell, even the Cooper-produced 'Joker' pulled from a similar songbook, dusting off reliable American cinema standards and giving them a fresh new spin.

"Viewed in that light, this prestige pic's curious indifference to many of the artistic qualities and career triumphs that made Leonard Bernstein such a coveted biopic subject make a lot more sense. 'Maestro' does not go behind the music – it's here to put on a show...

"As is often the case with actors-turned-directors, Cooper is generous with his cast – including himself. 'Maestro' throws up plenty of meaty scenes, with breakdowns, breakups, teary reconciliations and grim medical diagnoses in high supply. While Cooper enters the film as a spark plug, and only turns up the electricity, Mulligan finds time to shine outside Lenny's orbit, delivering a terrific, introspective monologue as the now middle-aged Felicia reflects upon her own agency in a marriage to a man who never hid his sexual interests. 'Who was lying to who?' she wonders."

Read the full review.

Variety, Owen Gleiberman

"It turns out that the tempest-in-a-teapot controversy over Cooper's decision to wear a prosthetic nose was entirely misplaced. The enhanced nose works terrifically well (you forget about it in a minute, as it becomes part of Bernstein's regal ethnic handsomeness). But it's the eyes that matter. Cooper, as an actor, has always had a preternatural gleam. In 'Maestro,' those eyes burn with delight, as he infuses Lenny with a giddy abandon that makes him a spectacle unto himself. He's got so much life force he expects the whole world to revolve around it...

"...It's part of the film's playful daring that we almost never see Bernstein, in his '50s and '60s heyday, up on the podium, slicing the air with his baton and shaking that signature black pompadour. Instead, 'Maestro' takes its cue from Bernstein's interior thrall. It's a movie that, like Lenny himself, goes where it wants to, leaving out what it wants to leave out, heeding its own pleasure centers, giving us privileged glimpses of Bernstein's life as if we were eavesdropping...

" 'Maestro,' like the great television series 'Fosse/Verdon,' is a stunning portrait of the artist as a charismatic narcissist in thrall to a marriage he believes in yet can't completely live up to. Most of the music we hear is Bernstein's own, and its astringent rapture is the soundtrack to his anguish and ecstasy. When we do finally see him conduct, leading an orchestra inside a cathedral in a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony, it's a magnificent scene in which Cooper shows us how Bernstein becomes the music and the music becomes him. This is Lenny at his most transcendent."

Read the full review.

The Guardian, Peter Bradshaw (Four Stars out of Five)

"Just last year at Venice, Cate Blanchett was introducing us to the tormented fictional conductor Lydia Tár by watching old childhood VHS tapes of her mentor, the great conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein talking about the way music triggers in you emotions you didn't understand and of which you didn't know you were capable. Now Bradley Cooper, in spectacular hair and makeup, has directed and starred in this heartfelt, garrulous and faintly exhausting film, conceived with sincerity and taste, all about Bernstein and his troubled relationship with his wife, Costa Rican actress and activist Felicia Montealegre Cohn, played with rather brittle English poise and self-deprecating common sense by Carey Mulligan...

"...Cooper has already got into trouble for 'Jewface' - though not for 'Gayface' - in that he is a non-Jewish man playing a Jewish role with a big prosthetic nose. In fact, in the context of the complete movie, that big nose isn't a big deal. (It may be karmic-filmic justice for Nicole Kidman's far more ridiculous fake nose in 'The Hours,' playing one of the great antisemites: Virginia Woolf.)...

"...In the end, Cooper's Maestro succeeds because it is candid about the sacrifices which art demands of its practitioners, and the sacrifices these practitioners demand of their families and partners. Bernstein was never going to compromise who he was, no matter how much he loved his wife. There is a sad, wintry acceptance of that."

Read the full review.

Rolling Stone, Marlow Stern

"Much ink has been spilled – or rather, tweets fired off – over Bradley Cooper's prosthetic nose in his Leonard Bernstein biopic. Because Cooper is not a Jew himself, dissenters opined, accentuating his schnoz was an act of crude caricature...

"And all the rank discourse is a shame because 'Maestro,' Cooper's Bernstein film, is made with such reverence and love for the man that after seeing the picture, which premiered at this year's Venice Film Festival, there will be no doubt in your mind that this is not just a worthy tribute to one of the greatest figures in the American musical canon, but also one of the finest films of the year...

"From its earliest moments, you can tell that Cooper and Co. have prepared something special. The dialogue is rhythmic and fast, zipping and humming along like a classic screwball, and the black-and-white lensing, courtesy of ace cinematographer Matty Libatique, recalls Hollywood's Golden Age. Silhouettes of Bernstein (Cooper) and his paramour, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), melt into one another as they kiss in a caliginous theater – a shot that contrasts beautifully with one later on where her body is subsumed by his vast shadow...

"The best decision Cooper makes in 'Maestro,' which will be released in theaters Nov. 22 prior to streaming on Netflix Dec. 20, is not hitting any of the big biopic beats that lesser films would really hammer home. No scenes of Bernstein, say, composing the score to 'West Side Story,' or writing his opera 'Trouble in Tahit'i during his and Felicia's honeymoon in Mexico, or conducting his response to the JFK assassination, or of the infamous soiree in Tom Wolfe's 'Radical Chic' (thank god). It instead shows us Bernstein and Felicia's union through a series of intimate moments – while still expressing how preternaturally talented of a musician Bernstein was. We are given snapshots of him acting out a dance sequence in sailor garb from 'Wonderful Town,' composing 'MASS 'at his Connecticut estate, teaching Tanglewood students, and conducting an orchestra with fire and fury."

Read the full review.

The Hollywood Reporter, David Rooney

"There's possibly no cheesier word in the Valentine's Day greeting card section than 'soulmates.' But it seems a fitting distillation of what kept virtuoso conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein and his wife, actress Felicia Montealegre, together through 27 often strained years of complicated marriage, as depicted in Bradley Cooper's transfixing biographical love story, 'Maestro.'

"Amplifying its force with thrilling use of the subject's music, this is a layered examination of a relationship that might be grossly over-simplified today as that of a closeted gay man and his 'beard.' But Cooper and co-screenwriter Josh Singer dig deeper to depict a unique union, fraught with conflicts yet unbreakable – even when it's broken...

"It's intended as no slight to Cooper's 'A Star is Born' remake, his impressive first turn in the director's chair, to say his follow-up is a considerable leap in terms of accomplishment. Coincidentally, 'Maestro' also marks the second film in a year to focus on a celebrated classical music conductor with a vigorous presence both on and off the podium, a messy personal life and a passion for Mahler. It makes for an unofficial companion piece to 'Tár,' whose fictional protagonist, Lydia Tár, was a Bernstein protégée...

"The movie is framed by the filming of a television interview with the aged Leonard, sitting at his piano with the eternal plume of cigarette smoke drifting from an ashtray by his side as he gets choked up playing a piece he wrote for his late wife. Whether or not the prosthetic nose was necessary or appropriate can be debated in other forums. But the resemblance to Bernstein, especially in his later years, is sufficiently convincing to allow Cooper to disappear into the role. Kudos to the hair and makeup team...

"One of the most powerful scenes is a recreation of Bernstein conducting Mahler's Symphony No. 2 'Resurrection' with the London Symphony Orchestra at Ely Cathedral in 1973. Cooper captures the precision, the physicality and the ecstasy of Bernstein's conducting in a plangent piece that ponders the continuation of life after death. When he rushes over to embrace Felicia at the end to the sound of thunderous applause, it's a moving prelude to a final act of devastating sorrow, as her illness brings him back to her and pulls the family together."

Read the full review.

Deadline, Pete Hammond

"Hollywood has had a very spotty record in telling the complete truths of some of our great musical geniuses. 1946's 'Night And Day', an attempted, but really fictionalized, biopic on the life of Cole Porter with Cary Grant, totally ignored his real life homosexuality as well as sham marriage. That is just one example. The latest in the genre, 'Maestro' having its World Premiere tonight at the Venice Film Festival, does not attempt to be a biopic at all on the great Leonard Bernstein, but instead puts its key focus on the relationship and 25 year marriage of Bernstein and his wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein, a star in her own right on the Broadway stage. All of it is presented including bringing up their three children – Jamie, Alexander, Nina – as well as Bernstein's own bisexuality and attraction to younger men, not a secret to his wife...

"Again though Cooper clearly had no interest in a soup-to-nuts look at the life of Leonard Bernstein, it was instead the life force that made him the complicated genius and complex husband and father that he was. This is only Cooper's second outing as a director after 2018's hit 'A Star Is Born,' but it is the work of a very assured filmmaker bringing a strong vision to the screen. Interestingly the sumptuously produced and long gestating film was originally going to be a directing vehicle for Martin Scorsese, and then Steven Spielberg – both remain as producers – but seems almost fated to land in Cooper's hands not only as its title star, but in its writing (collaborating with initial writer Josh Singer) and director...

"Among the many musical highlights is one set in a London Cathedral where Bernstein is seen conducting an intense classical piece. It is utterly thrilling to watch Cooper embody the complete physicality and intensity this man put into his musical work, truly awesome and Cooper, who had been obsessed with conducting even as a young kid, clearly put everything he had learned about the Bernstein heart and soul into this performance. The music, and the way it is used throughout is a star player itself, certainly a reason to see this film in a theatrical setting with state-of-the-art sound systems, even if it eventually is going to be streaming on Netflix. The sound mixing work , along with other production aspects are top notch. These include Kevin Thompson's production design, Mark Bridge's ever-changing costume design, Michelle Tesori's editing, and especially two-time Oscar winner Kazu Hiro's superb and flawless prosthetic make up work for Cooper's Bernstein. You can see Bradley Cooper in there but his transformation into this musical giant is something to behold."

Read the full review.