When Bradley Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein biopic Maestro received a seven-minute standing ovation at the 80th Venice International Film Festival on 2 September 2023, it marked the culmination of a project that had languished in development hell for nearly fifteen years. The film competed for the Golden Lion at the Lido, arriving with the weight of expectation that accompanies any production involving both Cooper and its executive producers Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg.
A Biopic Born in Development Limbo
Plans for a Bernstein biopic first emerged in 2008, when producers Fred Berner and Amy Durning secured the life and music rights from the Bernstein family. Josh Singer, fresh from his Oscar-winning work on Spotlight (2015), was brought on to write the screenplay, and Scorsese was attached to direct. The project sat at Paramount Pictures for nearly a decade. Cooper, who had signed on to star in 2017, was named director after Spielberg watched an early screening of A Star Is Born (2018) and told him: “You’re directing Maestro, my boy.” Netflix acquired the project in January 2020.
Cooper rewrote Singer’s script to focus on the marriage between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre, a Costa Rican-born actress he wed in 1951. The 129-minute film spans their relationship from 1943, when the 25-year-old Bernstein made his conducting debut with the New York Philharmonic as a last-minute substitute for the ailing Bruno Walter, through to Bernstein’s death in 1990. Carey Mulligan plays Montealegre, with Matt Bomer, Maya Hawke, and Sarah Silverman in supporting roles.
The Man Behind the Music
Bernstein, born in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1918 to Jewish immigrants from Ukraine, was the first American-born conductor to lead a major orchestra, serving as music director of the New York Philharmonic from 1958 to 1969 and thereafter as Laureate Conductor. His Young People’s Concerts television series won eleven Emmys during its fourteen-season run, making him one of the first classical musicians to harness television for mass education.
As a composer, Bernstein wrote across genres – On the Town (1944), Wonderful Town (1953), Candide (1956) – but it was West Side Story (1957), his contemporary adaptation of Romeo and Juliet set among New York City’s gang conflicts, that cemented his cultural legacy. The original Broadway production ran for 732 performances; the 1961 film adaptation won ten Academy Awards including Best Picture. Bernstein’s major concert works include three symphonies and Mass (1971), composed for the Kennedy Center’s inauguration. He received seven Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, sixteen Grammy Awards, and a Kennedy Center Honor in 1981.
Cooper’s Physical and Artistic Transformation
Cooper’s portrayal required extensive prosthetic work by Kazu Hiro, the Academy Award-winning makeup artist known for Darkest Hour (2017) and Bombshell (2019). The transformation sparked controversy when the trailer dropped in August 2023. Critics, including The Hollywood Reporter‘s Daniel Fienberg, questioned whether Cooper – who is not Jewish – should don a prosthetic nose to play a Jewish figure, labelling it “Jewface”. English actress Tracy-Ann Oberman argued that Cooper had played Joseph Merrick in The Elephant Man without prosthetics and should manage a Jewish man the same way.
Bernstein’s children – Jamie, Alexander, and Nina – issued a public statement defending Cooper. “It happens to be true that Leonard Bernstein had a nice, big nose,” they wrote. “Bradley chose to use makeup to amplify his resemblance, and we’re perfectly fine with that.” The Anti-Defamation League noted that the film was a biopic, not a caricature. Kazu Hiro later apologised “if [he] hurt some people’s feelings,” stating the team’s “only intention” was to portray Bernstein authentically.
Cooper trained with conductor Yannick Nézet-Séguin, music director of the Metropolitan Opera, to master Bernstein’s conducting style. The film’s musical sequences were performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, with the soundtrack released by Deutsche Grammophon on 20 November 2023.
Critical Reception and Awards
Maestro received generally positive reviews. On Rotten Tomatoes, 78% of 335 critics’ reviews are positive, averaging 7.4/10. Metacritic assigned the film a score of 77 out of 100. BBC Culture’s Nicholas Barber praised Cooper’s “technical virtuosity,” while The Hollywood Reporter‘s David Rooney described Mulligan’s performance as “heartbreaking.” Richard Brody of The New Yorker offered a dissenting view, criticising the film for “scrupulous avoidance of controversy and complexity.”
The awards haul was substantial. Maestro received seven Academy Award nominations at the 96th ceremony: Best Picture, Best Actor (Cooper), Best Actress (Mulligan), Best Original Screenplay, Best Cinematography (Matthew Libatique), Best Makeup and Hairstyling (Kazu Hiro), and Best Sound. It also earned seven BAFTA nominations, four Golden Globe nominations including Best Motion Picture – Drama, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. Both the National Board of Review and the American Film Institute named it one of the top ten films of 2023. Cooper became the fifth person in Academy history to direct himself to a Best Actor nomination more than once.
Venice, Netflix, and Box Office
After its Venice premiere – where it was nominated for the Golden Lion alongside Yorgos Lanthimos’s eventual winner Poor Things – Maestro screened at the 80th Venice International Film Festival‘s spotlight programme and closed AFI Fest.
Netflix gave the film a limited theatrical release on 22 November 2023, ahead of its streaming debut on 20 December. The theatrical run was primarily an awards-eligibility play; IndieWire estimated the film made approximately $200,000 from eight theatres in its opening weekend. Its worldwide box office total reached $523,000 – negligible for an $80 million production, but irrelevant for a streaming-first release designed to bolster Netflix’s awards credentials.
Whether Maestro ultimately succeeds as a portrait of Bernstein’s legacy remains debated. What is beyond dispute is the ambition of Cooper’s undertaking: a $80 million biographical drama about a classical musician, financed by a streaming platform, premiering at the world’s oldest film festival, and competing at the highest level of awards season. For a project that spent fifteen years trapped in development, that it reached screens at all represents a considerable achievement.
