I have been assured that a film can be both a good movie and a plea for Oscar consideration. As such, Maestro is a fine example of both. On the former, Maestro is quite good, flowing easily from fantasy to reality and filled with top-level performances.
Maestro covers the career of composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein Cooper , particularly his marriage to Felicia Montealegre Carey Mulligan. Lenny is thrust into the limelight when, as the assistant conductor at the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, the year-old Bernstein fills in at almost the last minute with no rehearsal time.
His unexpected debut is a total smash, elevating him to the highest ranks of conductors as well as composers. Despite a romantic relationship with clarinetist David Oppenheim Matt Bomer , Lenny soon falls quickly for Felicia, a Chilean aspiring actress who like Bernstein, is attempting to forge her way in the artistic world of New York.
Felicia is enthralled with Lenny, and he too seems to be madly in love with her. Eventually they marry and have three children. Bernstein's career rises higher and higher, not just becoming America's first world-renowned conductor and an openly Jewish one too but also a feted composer of such works as Broadway's On the Town and West Side Story along with symphonic work.
Felicia, for her part, has a respectable if not grand stage career, working more at home than the stage. However, things soon start shifting. Success for Bernstein have corrupted him somewhat. He is more open about his same-sex liaisons, much to Felicia's irritation.
