Film Pick of the Week: Maestro - review by Yvette Huddleston

Bernstein was a charismatic, complex man of huge passions and appetites – in both his professional and personal life. He was single-minded, ambitious and focussed about his work and generous with his affections. Although married to actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn (here played by Carey Mulligan), with whom he had three children, he was bisexual and throughout their marriage conducted affairs with various young men.

The film opens in luminous black and white near the beginning of Bernstein’s career when, as newly appointed assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic aged just 25, he got the opportunity to conduct the orchestra at Carnegie Hall, at very short notice and without rehearsal, when guest conductor Bruno Walter came down with the flu. It is one of those wonderful stories that matches the mythic quality of Bernstein’s huge personality.

Around this time he also meets Felicia at a party hosted by his sister and they quickly become romantically involved. She is bright, witty, kind and his intellectual equal. Their relationship was close, loving and mutually respectful and they were supportive of each other’s careers, although Felicia’s was inevitably somewhat sidelined once she became a mother. In many ways it is a tender love story that endured despite the difficulties presented by Bernstein’s many infidelities. Mulligan’s portrayal of Felicia’s loyalty, pain and dignified resilience in the face of her husband’s sometimes thoughtless behaviour towards her is heartbreakingly affecting. And it is a career-best performance from her, that matches Cooper’s astonishingly accurate impersonation frame for frame.

The cinematography from Matthew Libatique is impressive with a subtle, almost imperceptible move from monochrome to colour in the later sequences. There are some memorable set pieces of Bernstein at the podium – Cooper captures his energetic, idiosyncratic style perfectly – in particular the recreation of the legendary 1973 performance of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony in Ely Cathedral with the maestro conducting the London Symphony Orchestra and Edinburgh Festival Chorus. It is a spine-tingling moment that poignantly communicates the transformative power of music, and Bernstein’s unique ability to interpret it.

It is a beautiful film that is likely to do well come awards season – and it deserves to. Cooper is proving to be not only an outstanding performer, but also one of the most accomplished directors of his generation.