Mini Review - Maestro (2023)

I viewed Maestro at a small theater a couple weeks back and finally got around to writing my review. Maestro is a 2023 biographical film about the life of legendary composer Leonard Bernstein. It starred Bradley Cooper as Bernstein and Carey Mulligan as his wife Felicia Montealegre. The movie dealt more with the relationship between him and his wife than his overall career. It briefly touched on career difficulties, such as his drug usage (a random brief shot of him snorting coke at a party) and did not really expound on his sexuality and how he navigated it. They merely chalked it up to a rumor that his teenage daughter encounters later on in the film. I also would've liked the film to have dived deeper into his process when composing music or touched on some of his more iconic film scores like West Side Story and On the Waterfront. If you were looking for a more fleshed out biopic regarding Bernstein's life or came into the film not knowing much about him, you wouldn't really learn much in this film. Also, I found the prosthetic nose Bradley Cooper wore to be kind of distracting. It probably should've been better fitted. Overall, I'd rate Maestro with a 7.8 out of 10.