Maestro

 

★★★★★

Ambitious is the first word that comes to mind when describing Maestro. For only his second feature film, Bradley Cooper has taken on a larger-than-life figure in composer Leonard Bernstein, & made something as grandiose as the man himself. But does it succeed in capturing him?

The film follows Bernstein (Bradley Cooper), a young assistant conductor with the New York Philharmonic in the early 1940s. One morning, he is awoken to hear that the regular conductor has become sick & that he must take the stage. He does so to rousing success.

Flash-forward a few years, & Leonard finds himself at a party playing piano. It is there he locks eyes with young Felicia Montealegre Cohn (Carey Mulligan), an aspiring actress. Flash-forward a few more, & the two are married, with three children: Jamie (Maya Hawke), Alexander (Sam Nivola), & Nina (Alexa Swinton).

All during this time, Leonard has made a huge name for himself. He has conducted major works such as On the Town, Candide, & West Side Story, succeeding both on the Broadway stage & the Philharmonic Orchestra. Felicia succeeds during this time as well, booking roles on both Broadway & on the small screen.

But as his sister Shirley (Sarah Silverman) says to Felicia, "There's a price for being in my brother's orbit." Leonard has multiple affairs, many of them with other men like musician David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer). Can the marriage between Leonard & Felicia survive? Or will it crumble under pressure from infidelity & ego?

Bradley Cooper is not just portraying Leonard Bernstein; he becomes him. There is a ferocity in his performance that is nearly unparalleled in recent memory. From the biggest emotions to the most minute details, & all the many flaws of the man in between, Cooper transforms into the performance.

Carey Mulligan is phenomenal. It is just as much her film as it is Cooper's (she even receives top billing over Cooper in the film's credits). She is no simple wife who suffers under her husband's ego. She is fully-fledged & ferocious. Her chemistry with Cooper is sublime.

Cooper's ambitious direction is filled to the brim with style & substance. It's both bombastic & intimate; the rapturous performances of Bernstein's conducting contrast perfectly with the Cassavetian depiction of married life & all the love & anger there within. And there is a real emotional core here, with Cooper letting the story drive the emotion instead of going the easy way of tactless emotional manipulation.

The screenplay by Cooper & Josh Singer manages to stuff so much into the film's two-hour-plus runtime while giving ample time to breathe. The storyline's focus on character over plot is perfect for such an imposing figure, while also making all those standard biopic cliches feel fresh again.

Matthew Libatique's gorgeous cinematography shifts between color & black-&-white, between Academy ratio & classic widescreen. The use of color is especially gorgeous, with the entire palette being used, but the use of reds & browns sticking out most.

Michelle Tesoro's editing is a masterclass in transitions. The use of match cuts is just spectacular.

The sound design impeccably depicts the beautiful music on display. One scene in particular that uses Mahler's Resurrection Symphony is something to behold.

And the makeup & hairstyling is nothing short of transformational. Not only does it make the actors unrecognizable from how we see them, but even the subtlest of changes help establish the characters.

The emotion, the ambition, & the talent on display make this one of the best films of the year. It's so rare that a biopic like this comes along & truly captures its subject, warts & all, with such aplomb & care at the same time.

Maestro is in theaters now & on Netflix December 20. Its runtime is 129 minutes, & it is rated R for some language & drug use.

Dream Scenario

 

★★★

Fame is fleeting, as they say. But when the fame is in season, what can you control with your own fame? Or do you have any control, for that matter? All of these are questions with potentially unknowable answers.

Dream Scenario tries to answer these questions, & does so with intermittent success. The film follows Paul Matthews (Nicolas Cage), a mild-mannered college professor. Loved by his wife Janet (Julianne Nicholson) & two daughters, Sophie (Lily Bird) & Hannah (Jessica Clement) at home, but passed aside by colleagues & acquaintances like Richard (Dylan Baker) for dinner parties & such, Paul never manages to stick out.

That is, until one night, after Paul & Janet leave a play, where Paul is told by an old flame that he has appeared in her dreams. Then Richard calls & tells him that he has appeared in the dreams of a colleague who has never met him. Then more & more people start recognizing him in their dreams, from his students to others who have never interacted with him in real life. The dreams vary, but there is one constant: Paul is in them doing absolutely nothing.

With this, Paul becomes an overnight sensation. Suddenly, everyone wants to be around him, including marketing firms like one led by Trent (Michael Cera), who wants to get Paul with the Obamas & on cans of Sprite. Paul is skeptical of the fame at first, but eventually lets it get the better of him. But as the dreams start to take an active turn for the worse, Paul tries to figure out just how much, if any, of his fame is in his hands.

The cast is great. Nicolas Cage, as always, is tuned in. Cage is always a standout, no matter what the quality of the film, but when he's got something good going, it's a sight to see. The supporting cast, especially Julianne Nicholson & Michael Cera do some great work, but it's Cage's show through & through.

Kristoffer Borgli's direction is very good. Borgli sometimes bites off more than he can chew by handling all the themes, but he manages to have a original vision throughout.

His screenplay is solid, but not as strong as his direction. By the third act, the film takes a turn into the idea of cancel culture, & as a result, some of the satire falls flat. However, the characters are, for the most part, fully realized, & the dialogue is often very funny.

And his editing is terrific. Borgli uses a number of jump cuts to excellent effect, & his use of elliptical editing to drive the story forward is a fresh style in a world of stale editing that just exists.

While some of the themes, like that of cancel culture, don't quite hit, others about the sudden onset of fame, ultimately do. Dream Scenario owes a lot to the films of Spike Jonze & Charlie Kaufman, especially Being John Malkovich & Adaptation (also starring Nicolas Cage). But although the film is ultimately recommended, I wanted the real thing much more.

Dream Scenario is in theaters now. Its runtime is 102 minutes, & it is rated R for language, violence, & some sexual content.

May December

 

★★★★★

There is always the story of a perfect American family that has something sinister & dark beneath the surface. Keeping up the appearance of a perfect family is a struggle for those with shady pasts, & the question is: how long before the veil is tossed & everything is shown for what it is? And who, or what, will be the undoing?

May December is ultimately a story of appearances, both what we keep up in order to stave off the past, & what we use to become other people. Set in 2015, the film follows Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman), a noted television actress. Elizabeth, who considers herself a method actress, has chosen a particularly meaty role for her next film, a true crime drama where she portrays Gracie Atherton-Yoo (Julianne Moore), a former pet shop clerk, who in 1992, was arrested at the age of 36 for having a sexual relationship with 13-year-old Joe Yoo (Charles Melton), a classmate of her son Georgie (Cory Michael Smith). Gracie ultimately served time in prison for her crime, but after her sentence, has married Joe & settled down with him on bucolic Tybee Island in Georgia, with three kids in tow: Honor (Piper Curda), conceived during the initial relationship; & twins Charlie (Gabriel Chung) & Mary (Elizabeth Yu), who are about to graduate high school. Since her release, Gracie & Joe have ultimately made an idyllic life for themselves & their children, or as idyllic as one can be when boxes of fecal matter are intermittently sent to their house.

So off to Tybee Island goes Elizabeth to meet the Atherton-Yoo family & shadow them for her role. Gracie & Joe are moderately excited to have her come along, while the children range from being starstruck to questioning the idea of Elizabeth's decision to shadow in the first place. 

Elizabeth toils through the tabloids & the people surrounding the case to get towards the truth needed for her best performance. But her arrival threatens to tear apart the life that Gracie & Joe have made, as pressure causes long-held feelings to arise.

The performances are exemplary. Natalie Portman gives a performance rivaling her Oscar-winning turn in Black Swan. Julianne Moore, as always, is phenomenal, as a woman in denial. But it's Charles Melton who ultimately runs away with the film. Melton perfectly portrays a heavy role with a sense of arrested development, never growing from the moment he was first abused, & coming to terms with the horror of it all.

Todd Haynes' direction walks a fine tightrope. It's hard to make a film about such a sensitive topic funny in some parts. And yet, when it calls for humor, it works. Haynes has always been a man obsessed with camp & melodrama, evidenced especially in his 2002 ode to Douglas Sirk, Far From Heaven. And here, it's also especially evident, evoking the filmography of not only Douglas Sirk, but also that of his contemporary, Pedro Almodóvar. But Haynes also infuses the film with an overwhelmingly uncomfortable aura of dread, as the audience slowly reads past the tabloid-infused narratives & looks deeper into the human cost.

Samy Burch's brilliant screenplay is at once both a deeply affecting look at the haunting aftereffects of grooming & a darkly funny satire of method acting & how pointless it is. Burch, in her first published screenplay, further adds to the melodramatic camp atmosphere that Haynes has set up with a quasi-soap opera approach containing witty dialogue, yet never fails to move past how damaging the abuse is. The film is obviously inspired by the case of Mary Kay Letourneau, who abused her student Vili Fualaau & then married him, & it critiques many of the sick tabloid narratives that came about in that case.

This film about appearances & how they can be deceiving is one of the best of the year. It's a testament to Todd Haynes' ability as an auteur, Samy Burch's ability to tackle such a thorny subject in her first screenplay, & the cast's ability to take on such complex roles in such a multifaceted manner that this all works.

May December is now showing on Netflix. Its runtime is 117 minutes, & it is rated R for some sexual content, graphic nudity, drug use, & language.