Maestro

I loved everything about this move. All the music (with the exception of an excerpt from William Walton's Facade) was either written by Leonard Bernstein or performed by him. And Bradley Cooper captured Leonard Bernstein's Gestalt totally. Watching Cooper conduct Mahler's Second Symphony was like watching Leonard Bernstein conduct it. Watching Bradley Cooper's Bernstein teaching a conducting lesson at Tanglewood was like watching Leonard Bernstein teach.

I only have three teeny tiny criticisms. In the script I question the use of the phrase "read the room," which I believe is more of a twenty-first-century phrase than a twentieth-century phrase. (I never heard it until a few years ago, but I do lead a sheltered life). I also noticed that the European orchestra Bernstein performed the Mahler with had a healthy number of women in it, and many of those women were on the first stands of the string sections, and in the wind sections. Unless it was a freelance orchestra in London, I can't imagine that kind of gender equity coming into play in the 1970s. The decision the casting people made (and I believe they must have had good reasons for making it) didn't detract in any way from my enjoyment of the film.

I was pleased with the acting in the scene at Tanglewood with Serge and Olga Koussevitzky, but the actors who played them did not look in any way like the real people. I used to talk to Olga Koussevitzky at Tanglewood. My mother told me that she was a real princess, but I later learned that it wasn't true. In her French/Russian accent she would always ask me about my "bro-THEER." She had the most remarkable cheekbones.