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It seems that I don’t really like Bradley Cooper as a director. It’s not that I think he isn’t a skilled filmmaker; there is some shot composition in this film that is just wonderful and the orchestration of the performances is very good, I just didn’t connect with the movie. The same was true of A Star is Born. Neither of his two movies have really made me feel anything for the characters and as a result it was hard to engage. For films that very clearly aim to appeal to people’s emotions, they just left me a bit cold and with this being the case with the two of them, there is evidently something I’m not getting from him and his directorial style.

When it comes to Maestro, the overly mannered nature of the leads doesn’t help, even if the characters might have been like that in real life. Also this film somehow feels more like a series of chronological scenes rather than a connected narrative and both of these aspects kept me distant as well.

There’s also nothing here that is particularly ground breaking. As a biopic it is certainly competent but it is a bit like The Artist, more than slightly reminiscent of Tár and even calls back to classic movies like The Great Zeigfeld. None of it felt fresh.

I’m sorry to go on because I know lots of people have and will love this film but as a portrait of a legendary musician, it didn’t really show why he was so great either. There is lots of Leonard Bernstein music on the soundtrack which highlights his genius but this doesn’t illustrate what it was about man that lead to this, other than the fact that he was a driven perfectionist. That alone does not create greatness. This is admittedly a hard thing to show on screen but other films from Amadeus to Elvis have managed it and it is hard to forgive any movie that doesn’t even seem to try. You get a sense of why he was a brilliant conductor but not why he was such a distinctive and groundbreaking composer.

The film does have the politest coke snorting scene in cinema history but otherwise it was unremarkable – for me at least.

The Ripley Factor:

However, there is one thing that I will enthusiastically applaud the director Bradley Cooper for. Across both A Star is Born and Maestro, Cooper has directed himself to a larger than life performance. Here especially he is unrecognisable from his work in The Hangover films. Even with this though, and here is what I love, he has once again totally conceded the movie to his leading lady. Lady Gaga is the heart of A Star is Born and all the humanity in this film comes from Carey Mulligan. Ultimately it is undoubtedly her film.

The element of the narrative that focuses on Felicia Montealegra and Leonard Bernstein’s marriage, which is most of it, is actually similar to Sofia Coppola’s Pricilla (released on 1st January) in that it shows a woman living her life with an obsessive artist selfishly consuming in his own importance. Leonard Bernstein does not come across as quite the monster Elvis does but there is power in her story.