I find it so satisfying to see movies relating to classical music. I missed out on Tár, but I caught up with Maestro, the biopic of Leonard Bernstein. In fact, it’s the only one of the recent big movie names that I’ve seen twice; in the cinema and on Netflix.

I really liked it. Superb acting and music, and it looked gorgeous. I reject the allegation that it’s an ego trip for Bradley Cooper; one could say that about any movie where the director is also the lead actor. He is excellent, and a lot of the time I simply forgot that I wasn’t looking at Berstein on screen. 

And as for Carey Mulligan! Well, she is excellent in everything she does, and always has been, ever since her teens, and her performance here is a career best. The way the story is told of Felicia Montealegre’s decline and death from cancer is moving without being overly sentimental. 

Despite overall having a positive view of the movie, this post illustrates why it’s worth taking time to reflect before writing a review (my opinion of Oppenheimer has hardened since I posted the review here). So here are three flaws.

Firstly, the script is somewhat episodic, consisting at times of disjointed scenes that would have happened intervals of time apart, with the viewer being left to fill in the gaps. So we aren’t told, for example, that the engagement with Felicia Montealegre broke off at one point and she started a relationship with actor Richard Hart, which only ended with his death; Hart only appears briefly and ambiguously in one scene.

Secondly, I’ve read criticism from the gay community that it plays down Bernstein’s gay relationships, portraying them as mere dalliances. In its defence, biopics rarely succeed, especially when they tell the lives of people as multifaceted as Bernstein, if they try to cover everything. In this case the movie chose to focus primarily on Bernstein’s relationship with Felicia Montealegre. But the effect is indeed to play down his gay relationships, especially that with David Oppenheim, which was a deep artistic collaboration, and might even be worthy of a movie in its own right.

Thirdly, in choosing to focus on the relationship with Felicia Montealegre, why didn’t they deal with her fearless political activism? This is never even mentioned.

Nevertheless, this is one of the better movies that I’ve seen in the last few months. It’s a shame that it didn’t garner more Oscars, although it must be said that it was up against stiff competition in a bumper year.