FEEL THE BERNSTEIN

Now in the multiplexes; opening December 20 on Netflix:

Maestro--Bradley Cooper's imitation of Leonard Bernstein conducting is uncanny. Cooper captures Bernstein's histrionic, self-dramatizing, ecstatic style perfectly, and gets across how he used his gestures and facial expressions and body language not just to lead his musicians through a score but to tease the interpretation and intensity he wanted out of them.

The conducting scenes in this film, directed by Cooper from a script he wrote with Josh Singer, also suggest that the podium gave Bernstein a sense of liberation which he may have known in few other areas of his life. Cooper's performance, in general but particularly in these passages--especially a lengthy recreation of a celebrated performance of Mahler's "Resurrection Symphony"--is luminous.

I'll admit that it's taken me a while to come around where Bradley Cooper is concerned. But after A Star is Born and Nightmare Alley it was impossible to deny both his talent and the intelligence and heart with which he deploys it. Aided here by Kazu Hiro's amazing (and laughably controversial) prosthetic makeup, he gets across the conductor's mix of authority, of self-conscious, performative sophistication and of boyish wonder, and makes you see what made him beloved, both publicly and by his friends and family. You see what made him difficult, too.

Very wisely, Cooper chooses not to direct in the same florid manner that Bernstein conducted. Despite some flashy transitions, most of Maestro unfolds in long, sustained takes, beautifully shot by Matthew Libatique from a discreet distance; we're made almost into eavesdroppers at times. This directorial reserve balances the extravagant acting superbly.

The movie isn't a conventional biopic; there are no explanatory dates or places onscreen, no follow-up summary at the end, and only incidentally does it trace Bernstein's career highlights. The focus is on the relationship between Bernstein and the Costa Rican-born stage actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), who married him in 1951. The other characters, though well-drawn and convincingly played--Sarah Silverman is a good fit as Bernstein's sister Shirley--are decidedly subordinate to the leads.

According to the film, Montealegre was well aware, going in, that Bernstein was a gay man (though his affairs were not exclusively same-sex even before she came along). "Let's give it a whirl," she says breezily to him toward the beginning, and you think, uh-oh.

On the whole, they don't seem to have done too badly; they had three lovely kids, sensational careers, countless friends, and they seem to have profoundly loved each other. But entering into a marriage with somebody of uncongenial sexuality cannot come without turbulence, and this can only be compounded when they're a titanic cultural legend.

It's possible that even the movie itself succumbs to this, a little. With her brittle yet mirthful, keenly observant, wholeheartedly engaged line readings, Mulligan is marvelous; the spine and centering force of the movie (she's top-billed in the credits, even over Cooper). But we learn far less of Montealegre's remarkable career or her activism than we do about Bernstein. The movie sees her in relation to him, and doesn't always make clear how formidable she was in her own right, not just within the marriage but in the world at large.  Even when part of the point of the movie is the perils of putting yourself in the shadow of a legend, the person at the podium tends to get the attention.