Maestro - Release Date, Cast, Plot, Director, And More Info

Awards season has officially arrived (though it's felt like a never-ending cycle for quite some time now), and one of the most closely watched thoroughbreds is Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein drama, "Maestro."

A major motion picture recounting the life and times of Bernstein has been in the works for years. Martin Scorsese was attached to direct the project for Paramount, but dropped out when the financing came together for his long-in-gestation gangland epic "The Irishman." The film eventually found its way to Cooper, who skillfully maneuvered his way into the director's chair before his directorial debut, "A Star Is Born," became a 2018 awards season sensation.

Why all the fuss about a Bernstein-centric movie? The man was a powerhouse American composer and conductor who openly embraced his Jewish identity, while privately struggling with his sexual orientation. He was a cultural giant, one whose stature has faded along with the declining interest in classical music. If Cooper's film hits the mark, "Maestro" could reignite interest in his work, and, god willing, thrust classical compositions back into the mainstream.

"Maestro" will premiere on September 2, 2023 as an official competition selection at the 80th Venice International Film Festival. This will be quite the proving ground for the film's awards prospects. Aside from "Maestro," the Damien Chazelle-led jury will also be viewing such buzzy biopics as Michael Mann's "Ferrari" and Sofia Coppola's "Priscilla." Throw David Fincher's "The Killer," Pablo Larrain's "El Conde," and Yorgos Lanthimos' "Poor Things" into the mix, and we'll know right away whether "Maestro" is going to sink or swim prior to the December onslaught of critics awards and guild nominations.

As for the general public, Netflix will give the film a limited theatrical release starting on November 22, 2023, followed by a streaming premiere on December 20. Considering that Cooper has reunited with his brilliant "A Star Is Born" cinematographer Matthew Libatique (who is due an Oscar after being passed over for "The Fountain," "Black Swan" and "mother!"), this is one you're going to want to see on the big screen.

Aside from what we can glean from the teaser, they're fairly sparse. "Maestro" will obviously focus on his marriage to Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan) and his extramarital dalliances, particularly his affair with Tommy Cothran (Gideon Glick), a music student with whom he briefly cohabitated until Felicia was diagnosed with the lung cancer that would take her life in 1978.

Hopefully Cooper, who once dreamed of being a conductor of classical music, won't skimp on Bernstein's multifaceted genius. His major compositional works — "Candide," "West Side Story," and "Mass: A Theatre Piece for Singers, Players and Dancers" — will likely get foregrounded, but his "Young People's Concerts," which turned a generation of children on to a potentially daunting form of music at the exact moment rock-and-roll was exploding out of radios and hi-fis, are vital to understanding his cultural mission. This is where Bernstein's magnetism merged with his passion. This is why so many Baby Boomers have an appreciation for classical music.

Here's the official synopsis of "Maestro" from Netflix:

Maestro is a towering and fearless love story chronicling the lifelong relationship between Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein. A love letter to life and art, Maestro at its core is an emotionally epic portrayal of family and love.

Cooper and Mulligan will be shouldering the load as Leonard Bernstein and Felecia Montealegre, but they've got some impressive supporting castmates joining them. Maya Hawke (the fabulously talented daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman) and Sam Nivola (Alessandro Nivola's son, who's hot off what should've been a breakout performance in Noah Baumbach's "White Noise") will play two of the Bernstein children, while Sarah Silverman will portray the musician's beloved sister, Shirley.

The most intriguing bit of casting is Matt Bomer, a tremendously underrated actor who's probably best known to fans for his work as Larry Trainor/Negative Man on the DC television series "Doom Patrol." We learned last year that he was set to play one of Bernstein's lovers, but we know that it won't be Cothran. This could be a composite character. Regardless, Bomer has been delivering stellar performances on television and Broadway; his turn as a gay New York Times reporter in Ryan Murphy's adaptation of Larry Kramer's "The Normal Heart" earned him a well-deserved Primetime Emmy for Best Supporting Actor in a Movie/Miniseries. He could be the surprise Oscar contender here.

Less than a decade ago, the answer to this question would've been Martin Scorsese. When he left the project, Steven Spielberg stepped in. Spielberg, knowing of Cooper's interest in conducting, offered him what he might've thought was the actor's dream role in Bernstein. Cooper was certainly interested, but only if he could direct as well.

This was beyond bold, even for an actor who'd received three straight Academy Award nominations as an actor (for "Silver Linings Playbook," "American Hustle," and "American Sniper"). But he had an ace in the hole called "A Star Is Born." Cooper was confident that, if Spielberg watched his as-yet-unreleased movie, he'd step aside.

The screening was a near disaster. As Cooper told Stephen Colbert, "I'm showing him 'A Star is Born' and he's all the way on the other side, in the front row. Huge screen. And it's the scene where Jackson [Cooper] calls Ally [Lady Gaga] up on the stage, like the whole thing. It's the biggest scene in the movie."

Cooper thought Spielberg was taking a bathroom break. He wasn't. "He walks over," said Cooper. "I'm putting my head down and the next thing I feel is his face. He said, and it's loud, 'You're [expletive] directing Maestro,' and then he sat back down. It was amazing."

If Spielberg thinks you're capable enough to direct a Leonard Bernstein film, you're capable enough. Now about that nose...

Cooper, who comes from Irish and Italian ancestry, is not Jewish, which typically wouldn't be an issue. But his decision to apply a noticeable prosthetic nose to approximate Bernstein's physiognomy inspired a backlash from critics and cultural observers who felt the actor was engaging in hateful Jewish caricature.

We can discuss the wisdom of Cooper's choice, but we should do so after we see the finished film. Even then, it's a bad-faith way to start a conversation because no one in their right mind thinks Spielberg and Bernstein's three children (who've voiced support for his depiction of their father in the movie) gave Cooper carte blanche to reduce Bernstein to an ethnic caricature. As Mark Harris, who is a first-rate film historian and Jewish, noted in an essay for Slate:

"It's hard not to respond to this as many do, by saying, 'It's called acting.' That's glib and oversimplified, but it reflects the frustration many of us feel that the long-standing definition of performance (and of artistic creation in general) as an act of expressive empathy, of leaping into the life of another, of inhabiting someone you are clearly not, is being discarded by those who think of an acting role as a prize to be won by someone whose life, identity, and inherent qualities most clearly match the person they're playing."

The whole essay is well worth reading. Please do so before you get worked up over a silly non-issue.

We know how Scorsese and Spielberg landed their producer credits, but there are three others on board: Kristie Macosko Krieger (Spielberg's former assistant, who is now an accomplished producer in her own right), Fred Berner (a Primetime Emmy winner for producing "Lakota Women: Siege at Wounded Knee"), and Amy Durning.

Cooper co-wrote "Maestro" with Josh Singer, who cut his teeth on such acclaimed television shows as "The West Wing," "Fringe," and "Lie to Me" before making the leap to screenwriting with Bill Condon's ahead-of-the-curve Wikileaks movie "The Fifth Estate." His gift for writing spikily compelling historical dramas earned him a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for "Spotlight" (which he shared with Tom McCarthy). He's since penned the celebrated scripts for Spielberg's "The Post" (with Liz Hannah) and Damien Chazelle's "First Man."

Singer knows his way around fact-based scripts, and, thus far, he's yet to write one that feels overly formulaic in a "Dewey Cox has to think about his whole life before he plays" fashion. At a studio level, he's one of the best working today in this genre (and as with "Spotlight," this is an original screenplay).

The silly nose controversy notwithstanding, the "Maestro" teaser hits most of the essential notes if you're acquainted with Bernstein's life. I like the framing of Leonard and Felicia sitting back-to-back in a park, cigarettes ablaze (they both died too young of smoking-related illnesses) and trying to telepathically transmit numbers back and forth to each other (they never succeed in the snippets shared here).

There's also the music: The "Adagiatto" from Gustav Mahler's 5th Symphony. Bernstein was an admirer of Mahler, and probably did more to champion the Austrian composer's oeuvre than any other conductor throughout the 20th century. But what's most exciting about the teaser is its lack of histrionics. Yes, we see Bernstein in the throes of conducting, but the overall tone is pensive. "Maestro" feels like it will be a sad film about a man who, no matter how much he loved his wife and children, could not fully be himself.

"Maestro" has been rated R by the Motion Picture Association for "some language and drug use."