Donna Neylon

I just saw Maestro. Bradley Cooper understands the visual medium of film. In the beginning of the film, the editing is quick, extreme angles are used, from way up high, much like film noir movies made in the '30's & '40's. The quick sequences emphasize the youthful, herkey-jerky behavior of Bernstein in his youth. I like the way the film introduces Bernstein's sexuality first & foremost, without ceremony & just a part of his life. The way Carey Mulligan's eyes change moods truly reveals more about the character of Bernstein than anything else. The character of Felicia, Bernstein's wife, pulls off that 'Donna-Reed-Well-Dressed' role with a pronounced artificiality that mimicked the role expectation of housewife in the 1950-'60's in America. It works because, initially, we see her character as a very "aware", confident, actress-intellectual but during a televised interview, she dummies-down her accomplishments to "fit" into a role. I think that scene reveals the heart of this film: Pretending to Accept something just to make your Life Tolerable. The 1st half of the film was sluggish but the 2nd part gets to the "meat" of the characters. One senses the character is not 100% content living his life solely as a gay man but neither living it 100% as a happily-married man either. There's a scene where Bernstein describes his depression & how it's always with him. It reveals the deep layers of the character & of Cooper, also, it's so convincing. It shows there's more to this Cooper actor-director than what meets the eye. One wonders if Cooper really is this complex soul or this good-looking, squeaky-clean celebrity we "see" in real-life. When is he "acting"? I liked the movie but it didn't live up to the hyped-up expectations I had.