In his directorial follow-up to A STAR IS BORN, Bradley Cooper dramatizes the public and private lives of legendary musician Leonard Bernstein with sensitivity, visual ingenuity and symphonic splendor. Coasting on the boundless energy of its subject’s runaway genius, MAESTRO transports the viewer back to a vividly re-created postwar New York, when Bernstein (Cooper) began his stratospheric rise to international fame as both a conductor and composer — and also when he first met Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), the actress whom he would marry and spend his life with. MAESTRO is a tender, often intensely emotional film about the different faces one wears when living in the public eye, depicting the complicated yet devoted decades-spanning relationship between Leonard and Felicia. Fueled by Cooper and Mulligan’s perfectly matched duet of towering performances, Matthew Libatique’s balletic cinematography, and of course, Bernstein’s thrilling music, MAESTRO is a tour de force for its director.
“A complex and sophisticated picture, the kind of grown-up love story we see all too rarely these days, especially when it comes to starry, big-ticket moviemaking. It’s entertaining and robust and forthright; it’s also tremendously sad, not necessarily in a bring-your-hanky way, but in a deeper, more truthful way… It’s a picture that gives you something you didn’t know you needed.” —Stephanie Zacharek, TIME
“Cooper…places himself on a high wire and carries it off. In MAESTRO, he works with a pointillistic intimacy that invests every moment with fascination and surprise.” —Owen Gleiberman, Variety
“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… It would be worth the price of admission just for the music, but the sharp dramatic focus on the iconic life behind all of it makes it memorable, and a film that meets its subject head on.” —Pete Hammond, Deadline
“MAESTRO is a treat for all of your senses. There is never a shot wasted for your eyes or ears… Captures the magic of musical theater, the intimacy of a marriage that is as loving as it is painful, and the torture of an artist who is deathly afraid of being alone… Cooper certainly does not spare his performance to focus on the direction… Carey Mulligan gives one of the best performances of the year as Felicia Montealegre.” —Emma Kiely, Collider
