Ron Weisberg

I give this movie 1-star (mainly for Felicia/Mulligan) and 6 packs for all the cigarette smoking. Who decided to put cigarette smoking in nearly every scene? Partying, yes; at dinner, ok; making love, well; in the park, waiting for a diagnosis, holding a dying wife, on and on, everywhere-everybody, cigarettes. I found it enormously distracting (and disgusting). As for the movie, I came to see my conducting hero, Leonard Bernstein, and left thinking mostly about Felicia. Her coping with a philandering, big ego partner, eventually dying from cancer, was the real story. The one great scene Cooper/Bernstein had was the Mahler 2nd Symphony. Cooper is no Bernstein. I've watched videos of Bernstein conducting the 2nd. Cooper's jerks and twitches are a caricature. Wish I had waited for Netflix.