Venice Film Festival reviews: ‘Maestro’ is a ‘worthy tribute’ to Leonard Bernstein, ‘superb and deeply felt’

Daniel Montgomery
·4 min read
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“Maestro” bowed at the 2023 Venice Film Festival on Saturday, September 2. The film, which tells the story of famed composer Leonard Bernstein (Bradley Cooper) and his decades-long relationship with Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan), recently sparked debate over Cooper’s use of a prosthetic nose to portray the Jewish music legend. But what did journalists think when they finally got to see the whole film?

The film already has a MetaCritic score of 82 based on 15 reviews that have come out of the fest as of this writing — 14 of them positive and one of them classified as mixed, but none outright negative. Over on Rotten Tomatoes the film rates 95% fresh based on 20 reviews, which means only one review there was classified as negative.

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Stephanie Zacharek (Time) says the film, which Cooper also directed, is “superb and deeply felt … This is a complex and sophisticated picture, the kind of grown-up love story we see all too rarely these days, especially when it comes to starry, big-ticket moviemaking. It’s entertaining and robust and forthright; it’s also tremendously sad, not necessarily in a bring-your-hanky way, but in a deeper, more truthful way.”

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Marlow Stern (Rolling Stone) argues that the discourse around the makeup is a “shame” because the film “is made with such reverence and love for the man that after seeing the picture, which premiered at this year’s Venice Film Festival, there will be no doubt in your mind that this is not just a worthy tribute to one of the greatest figures in the American musical canon, but also one of the finest films of the year.”

Owen Gleiberman (Variety) agrees with Stern that “the tempest-in-a-teapot controversy over Cooper’s decision to wear a prosthetic nose was entirely misplaced” and states that he “infuses Lenny with a giddy abandon that makes him a spectacle unto himself.” The actor-director “places himself on a high wire and carries it off.”

Robbie Collin (The Telegraph) writes that Cooper is “dizzyingly good” in the film. And Ben Croll (The Wrap) adds that Mulligan “finds time to shine outside Lenny’s orbit, delivering a terrific, introspective monologue as the now middle-aged Felicia reflects upon her own agency in a marriage to a man who never hid his sexual interests.”

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So will Cooper work his Oscar magic again with this effort? His debut as a director, “A Star is Born” (2018), earned eight nominations including a trio of bids for Cooper for Best Picture, Best Actor and Best Adapted Screenplay. It won a sole award for Best Original Song (“Shallow”). In all, Cooper has been nominated for nine Oscars for his work in front of and behind the camera, but he has yet to win. Now he could be nominated up to four more times as a producer, director, writer and actor for this film. Meanwhile, his co-star Mulligan is a two-time Best Actress nominee (for 2009’s “An Education” and 2020’s “Promising Young Woman”) aiming for her third career bid and first win. Oscar-nominated “Star is Born” cinematographer Matthew Libatique is also back in the running for this film, which would mark his third career nomination.

Following its Venice world premiere “Maestro” will screen at the New York Film Festival and BFI London Film Festival. It will get a limited theatrical release on November 22 before streaming on Netflix on December 20.

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