The sheer glut of stuff available on Netflix can make picking any one movie difficult. Even if you know that there’s tons of great stuff to watch on Netflix, you may find yourself suffering from decision paralysis when it comes tchoosing something great to watch.
If you’re looking for a movie this August, look no further than Bradley Cooper’s Maestro. The film, which tells the story of composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein and his marriage, was released in 2023. Here are three reasons you should make time for it, despite what you may have heard about it.
Its central performance is amazing (and it’s not the one you think)
Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein is great, and the movie wouldn’t work without his presence. The person who really stands out in Maestro, though, is Carey Mulligan, who plays Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein, Bernstein’s wife and confidant.
In navigating the reality that Bernstein was both married and a gay man, we come to understand just how fraught their relationship was, but also how much they loved and relied on one another, and how much of a hole she left behind after her death. Mulligan is the emotional heart of the movie, and her version of Felicia is both kind and fierce in ways that bring out the best of what Mulligan is capable of as a performer.
It features some genuinely virtuoso directing
In the aftermath of Cooper’s A Star Is Born, it was easy to wonder whether the actor had simply gotten lucky. Thankfully, Maestro is proof that Cooper has a real directorial voice worth listening to. The movie features a dream ballet, a shift from black-and-white to color, and that remarkable sequence of Bernstein conducting, but none of it feels overly dramatic or showy.
Cooper knows to keep the heart of the story on the movie’s central characters, and on the way Bernstein’s notoriety ultimately made him a hard person to truly know. Cooper’s gifts as an actor are remarkable, but they’re exceeded here by his gifts as a director.
The makeup work is incredible
You may have seen some discussion ahead of the movie’s release about the fake nose that Cooper is wearing in the film, but in practice, the makeup in Maestro is some of the most remarkable work that’s ever been done for the medium. This is especially true as the characters age and we get to see the lines and wrinkles develop on their faces.
Kazu Hiro, one of the masters of makeup, especially old-age makeup, was on hand for the film, and his work is given plenty of time to prove how masterful it truly is. You watch these characters age decades over the course of the film, and you believe every minute of it.
Maestro is streaming on Netflix.
