A towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.
Given how little this film has to say about music, artistry, passion, family and the intersections thereof, it drags the viewer (likely against their will) back to questioning why we need yet another biopic that sympathises with an affluent, problematic male artist. Still, looks pretty good.
Well worth reading Philip Clark's entire article in the New York Review of Books.
The takeaway from Maestro […] is that Cooper the movie star and artiste has some THOUGHTS on what it means to be a famous closeted man, certainly presumptuous on his end that we care that much. Trying to pull a “the movie was actually about his wife, really” move in the checkout line rings rather false, and one sees the better film in the one that shuns two forms of respectability politics, be it of awards movies or gay representation.
— Ethan Vestby (In The Mood)
