Maestro 2023

I suffered again from detaching from it because of the black and white. I experienced this with Raging Bull and Following. That barrier is still there for me. But I can definitely see how beautifully lit it is. The lighting is elegant and intentional, very sculpted, especially on faces. You can tell there’s a deep appreciation for classic cinema craft even if it didn’t fully pull me in emotionally. Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan, for me, don’t have strong chemistry. I couldn’t fully resonate with the problems presented in their relationship. The emotional stakes felt distant, like I was observing their struggles rather than feeling them. The conflict is there, but it didn’t translate into something I could emotionally latch onto. After 47 minutes, there’s finally color. Thank God. That shift alone made the film easier for me to stay engaged. The color brings warmth and texture. I can still hear the lowered vocal register, using a gravelly, strained, almost damaged tone of Jackson Maine in Bradley Cooper’s voice here, and that made it hard for me to disassociate those characters. That same familiar vocal carries over here, so instead of fully seeing Bernstein, I keep hearing echoes of Jackson Maine’s brokenness and Rocket’s rough charm. It distracted me more than I expected. That said, props to the prosthetics, hair, makeup, and overall transformation. The aging process looks convincing. The transition from middle-aged to older Bernstein feels seamless and carefully executed. Maybe I’m just not a fan of opera or orchestral music, which makes it harder for me to invest in the gravity of the craft being portrayed. The film treats music as something monumental and transcendent, but I didn’t feel that pull personally. Or maybe I came in with the wrong expectations. I think part of it is that I subconsciously expected this to become another A Star Is Born. Something warm, heartfelt, emotionally direct. A passionate chase for dreams mixed with existential crisis and music that carries you emotionally throughout. Maestro is colder, and more observational but it didn’t resonate with me on a personal level.