Review: In 'Maestro,' Bradley Cooper, as director and star, captures the contradictory loves of Leonard Bernstein

The musical biography “Maestro” is a tour de force for its director and star, Bradley Cooper — which one imagines would suit the person he’s playing, composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein, down to his socks.

Cooper and his writing partner, Josh Singer (“Spotlight,” “The Post”), take the cradle-to-grave approach with Bernstein — well, nearly — introducing the audience to the young conductor in 1943, living in an apartment with other musicians. Bernstein catches his first break in 1943, as assistant conductor of the New York Philharmonic, when a guest conductor gets the flu and Bernstein, with no rehearsal, is sent in to lead the orchestra at Carnegie Hall, making Bernstein a national sensation.

Some time later, at a party where his friends — the songwriting duo of Betty Comden (Mallory Portnoy) and Adolph Green (Nick Blaemire) — are entertaining, Bernstein meets an actress, Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). There’s a connection and an attraction, based on shared passions for music and art. In short order, they’re in bed together, and not long after they’re married.

Felicia soon realizes, though, that if she’s going to be married to Leonard Bernstein, she will be forced to share him — both with a series of lovers, some women but mostly men, and with the world as his fame continues to grow.

In performance, Cooper captures so much of Bernstein’s charm and stage presence. One of the showstopping moments in the movie comes when Bernstein is conducting Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in C Minor in Ely Cathedral in 1976 — a nearly unbroken scene in which cinematographer Matthew Libatique zeroes in on Cooper’s re-creation of Bernstein’s conducting style, capturing the precision, the exuberance and the respect for the music that he brought to every performance.

(Yes, if we must, let’s talk about the nose. Cooper deploys makeup artist Kazu Hiro — who has won Oscars for transforming Gary Oldman into Winston Churchill for “Darkest Hour” and Nicole Kidman into Gretchen Carlson in “Bombshell” — to create prosthetics to give the handsome actor a schnozz like the conductor’s. Though there were initial complaints about the nose, in the context of the movie, it’s unobtrusive and seems to give Cooper something around which to ground his performance.)

For all that, though, the best thing Cooper does in “Maestro” is to make room for Mulligan’s beautiful portrayal of Felicia. It’s a complex role that takes in her shared joy for creativity, her sorrow and acceptance over her husband’s extramarital encounters, and a poignant portrayal of Felicia’s health problems. Mulligan doesn’t just touch all the bases, but she provides an emotional compliment to Cooper’s showier performance. (Kudos to Cooper for graciously giving Mulligan top billing, too.)

The other highlight of “Maestro” is, of course, the music. Except for a few needle drops (including R.E.M.’s “It’s the End of the World As We Know It (and I Feel Fine),” which famously name-checks Bernstein), the entire soundtrack is music composed by or conducted by Bernstein himself — including passages from “West Side Story,” “Candide,” his “Mass” and “Kaddish.” The music does as much to make “Maestro” feel like you’re watching the master at work as Cooper’s soulful performance does.

——

‘Maestro’

★★★1/2

Opens Friday, December 8, in theaters; starts streaming on Netflix on December 20. Rated R for some language and drug use. Running time: 129 minutes.