Maestro

Bradley Cooper really wants that Oscar. He’s doing a lot in this Leonard Bernstein biopic — he’s Acting with a capital A, and he absolutely crams the film with directorial stylistic flourishes. But all of the long takes and ostentatious camera movements in the world can’t hide the fact that, underneath the style, this is a bog-standard awards-season biopic. There are a lot of big emotions in the film (there are definitely moments where it’s like, well, there’s the Oscar clip), but it all feels hollow. Like with so many similar biopics, the film depends on the knowledge that it’s about someone important; taken on its own merits, there’s just nothing particularly interesting about the story being told. The movie dutifully hits all the beats you’d expect from a biopic like this, but Cooper has seemingly forgotten that it’s kinda important that a film maybe has a personality of its own? It’s handsomely made (including some admittedly stunning cinematography from Matthew Libatique) and I’m sure it’ll score some of the Oscars that Cooper and Netflix so desperately want. But it’s boring. Nice music, though.

*1/2 out of ****