Michael Phillips: What Bradley Cooper’s ‘Maestro’ reveals about Leonard Bernstein — and Cooper’s own artistic ego
Bradley Cooper’s all over everything in “Maestro,” as director, producer, co-writer (with Josh Singer) and star. Spanning most of his subject’s dazzling, chaotic life, Cooper’s performance as the eternally hungry Leonard Bernstein — musician, composer, conductor, educator — takes second billing behind Carey Mulligan, who plays Bernstein’s second wife, actress Felicia Montealegre.
The billing seems a little off once you’ve seen "Maestro," now in limited theatrical release ahead of its Dec. 20 Netflix streaming premiere. But we’ll get to that.
Cooper’s second directorial feature, which had its world premiere at the Venice International Film Festival in September, follows the massive success of his remake of “A Star is Born” five years ago. There, as the whiskey-soaked country star on the way down, the actor lowered his speaking voice to a warm Sam Elliott growl.
In “Maestro,” working off untold hours of video and audio tapes of his real-life subject, Cooper fashions a higher, faster approximation of
