‘Maestro’ review: Music meets marriage in Bradley Cooper’s near-masterpiece

Bradley Cooper, take a bow.

Cooper gives a symphonic performance as legendary American composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein in “Maestro” and, in his first film as a director since his Academy Award-nominated 2018 update of “A Star Is Born,” is a borderline-masterful conductor himself.

“Maestro” — released recently in select markets, going a bit wider this week and landing on Netflix on Dec. 20 — is only so interested in Bernstein’s creative process. Do not expect lengthy sequences of, say, him working with lyricist Stephen Sondheim and others to craft the 1957 Broadway musical “West Side Story.”

It does, of course, make much of the late Bernstein’s relationship with music, and the film pulsates with glorious works he composed or conducted. An example of the latter, a glorious sequence recreating his leading of the London Symphony Orchestra through a performance of Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor “Resurrection” in Ely Cathedral is so arresting that you wonder if this hurricane-like man with the baton in his hand may just collapse at its conclusion.

However, “Maestro” is most concerned with the love shared between Bernstein and his wife, theater actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein, embodied by Carey Mulligan in a performance as strong as Cooper’s. Their relationship, one that would produce children, was certainly unconventional, as we see Cooper’s Leonard regularly take an interest in a younger male admirer.

“I miss her terribly,” an aged Leonard, sitting at a piano, tells a camera crew in the film’s opening moments.

Cooper the director then shifts to a narrower aspect ratio and black-and-white film to introduce us to a much younger Lenny, immediately before making his conducting debut at New York’s Carnegie Hall and shortly before meeting Felicia at a party.

Soon, they are spending time alone together — she calls him “Maestro,” which he says sounds very fancy — and entering into a relationship.

“You don’t even know how much you need me, do you?” she asks him during an intimate moment.

“I may,” he says.

As they agree to marry, Felicia seems to grasp the potential complications that lie ahead for them.

“I know exactly who you are,” she says. “Let’s give it a whirl.”

“Maestro” regularly jumps forward in time from there, to the kids, to more musical successes, to the young men.

“Fix your hair,” Felicia scolds Leonard at a party they are hosting after he has slipped away with one such male. “You’re getting sloppy.”

Through the excellent screenplay by Cooper and Josh Singer (“Spotlight,” “The Post”) and subtle acting choices made by Mulligan (“Promising Young Woman,” “She Said”), we see that this relationship is proving to be more difficult than Felicia had expected, and conversations with Lenny’s sister, Shirley (Sarah Silverman) help only so much.

It doesn’t help matters that Lenny’s behavior also affects daughter Jamie (Maya Hawke of “Stranger Things”), who is troubled by the rumors she hears while she’s away at school.

Along the way, color returns to “Maestro,” but the four-by-three aspect ratio remains until we arrive at a bookend scene with the older Bernstein at the piano. We’re not usually a fan of that condensed framing, but Cooper and director of photography Matthew Libatique (“Black Swan,” “A Star Is Born”) use it to great effect here. It gives the film a persistently intimate feel, the characters able to be only so physically far from one another. Also, it enhances the myriad moments when Cooper chooses to box in Leonard and Felicia — in a doorway, in a window frame or section of a fence — to suggest they are, metaphorically, trapped together.

When mentioning Cooper’s collaborators, though, perhaps none deserves plaudits more than prosthetic makeup designer Kazu Hiro (“Darkest Hour,” “Bombshell”). You’ll rarely see more convincing work done to present characters at different phases of their lives than what you get here with Leonard and Felicia.

Furthermore, Hiro’s work with Cooper helps the actor all but disappear into the frequently smoking Leonard. There’s plenty of heavy lifting done by Cooper in the role, to be sure, but that makeup truly helps you forget you’re watching the star of movies including “The Hangover,” “Silver Linings Playbook” and “Nightmare Alley.” (Imagine not only starring in but also directing a movie this challenging after sitting for hours of makeup application. It makes Cooper’s work here even that much more impressive.)

The knocks on “Maestro” are minor — it doesn’t really bother to develop secondary characters, and as with many biographical films told largely in chronological order, it loses a bit of steam as it goes — and the film and its leads should be major contenders come awards season.

Perhaps Cooper’s bow will come after winning an Oscar.

‘Maestro’

Where: Cedar Lee Theatre in Cleveland Heights.

When: Dec. 8 (Dec. 20 on Netflix).

Rated: R for some language and drug use.

Runtime: 2 hours, 9 minutes.

Stars (of four): 3.5.