“A work of art does not answer questions, it provokes them; and its essential meaning is in the tension between the contradictory answers.”
This quote from Leonard Bernstein opens Bradley Cooper’s biography of the inspired composer. Cooper’s treatment of Bernstein’s life is mesmerizing from a directing, writing, acting, and even a technical perspective. He succeeds in showcasing a man who was a virtuoso on stage composing music, and yet his personal life was riddled with contradictions.
As the movie opens, we’re introduced to a 70-year-old Bernstein taking part in an interview while playing the piano. It’s here that we get a keen sense of the makeup and the performance, becoming instrumental in fashioning the essence of the real Bernstein. Throughout the movie, Cooper is not merely doing an imitation of Bernstein from a physical point of view. He also tries to inhabit the soulfulness of a man who had such professional ambition while trying to reconcile with his personal demons.
We’re then transported to black-and-white in 1943 where Bernstein makes his debut as a composer with the Philharmonic orchestra. He receives high praise for his work, but an even bigger revelation awaits him when he encounters Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). The two of them fall in love, get married, and have three children. In the 1950s, the movie switches to color, and Bernstein’s career is skyrocketing. It is in this timeframe he gets the opportunity to compose operas and musicals, including “West Side Story,” with an up-and-coming lyricist named Stephen Sondheim.
However, in conventional biographical fashion, Bernstein starts to slip when he begins a series of extramarital affairs. He believes that Felicia is dominating him with an iron fist. Even his own daughter Jamie (Maya Hawke) begins to have suspicions about her parents’ potentially floundering marriage.
Cooper is front and center with his performance, but equally powerful is Mulligan’s Felicia. She occupies the character with an outstanding combination of a woman who deeply loves Bernstein and wants to hold on to her marriage, but she’s convinced that he has no love in his heart for her and is worried he is embracing his own self-destruction. Mulligan deserves just as much consideration as Cooper. I’ll consider it a cardinal sin not to see them as one of the five Oscar nominations for Best Actor and Actress, respectively.
Even with heavyweights like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg serving as producers, Cooper wonderfully and beautifully recreates a series of music eras and the life of one man who wanted to transform music into something that resonates not only with the audiences who come and listen but also to the players and ultimately the man making the music. There’s a sequence in which Bernstein conducts Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony and during that sequence, I was totally hypnotized because I didn’t see Bradley Cooper as Leonard Bernstein. I saw Leonard Bernstein as Leonard Bernstein. The amount of energy, intensity, and passion during that sequence is one that will leave you breathless.
This is Cooper’s second directorial effort after his remake of “A Star is Born.” It’s not quite in the same league as that film, but when it comes to his directorial styles and choices, Cooper is quickly climbing the ladder in being an actor like Clint Eastwood or Ben Affleck, who has an exceptional eye for telling stories with a flair, an engrossment and attention to detail that shines. I look forward to seeing his next effort.
The movie has been in a limited theatrical release since November but will be coming to Netflix on December 20th.
Grade: A-
(Rated R for some language and drug use.)
