Movie #3179 ........................."Maestro" (Netflix)

 Movie #3179 "Maestro"  (Netflix)  I was really anxious to see this one --- big Bernstein fan, big Bradley Cooper fan, Big Carey Mulligan fan, but it left me pretty cold.  I was never pulled into it --- I felt it always kept its distance, except for Carey Mulligan --- this may just win her the Oscar (which I thought she deserved in "Promising Young Woman" a few years ago).  She does the whole gamut here, and had to learn a particular accent portraying the wife originally from Costa Rica, who was raised in Chile where she went to British schools, and lived for a short time in Santiago before coming to America, so it was a bit of a mixed accent expected of her.  I don't know if I was supposed to feel this way, but while watching I thought her story was even more captivating.....doing the acting thing, supporting her husband and helping him with his career, while raising two girls, and the biggest role:  putting up with all of his eccentricities and obsessions and helping him with all of his anxieties and stress.  That has to wear on the woman, and that's what I got mostly out of this film.  I think the viewer spends some time with Bernstein getting to stop seeing Bradley Cooper (and that takes a while to get used to that) . He does a wonderful job but there's a lot of staring and thinking on his part, and less talking things out --- so it was harder to get to know him.  There's a long passage where he is just using his baton --- I applaud the guts of the  director to have the audience watch the man with the prop  that long in this scene, but I wanted to understand even more in that scene what I was supposed to be getting out of it.  It could be just me, but I guess I wanted more info and help to understand the man behind that baton.  The acting is good, but there's something in the way the film is presented to us that pushed me more away , than drew me in.  I'd give it a 3.8 and say I respect the film, but I wish it made me think and feel even more than it did.  

"MAESTRO"     R RATED      2 hours and 9 mins         2023

This love story chronicles the lifelong relationship of conductor-composer Leonard Bernstein and actress Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein.

Director:  Bradley Cooper

Writers:  Bradley Cooper, Josh Singer

Actors:  Carey Mulligan, Bradley Cooper, Matt Bomer