The discourse around this movie is going to be dominated by the prosthetic nose. It's a weird creative choice, in this day and age.
Also, is it just me or does this look like Cooper trying to ape the look and feel of a PTA movie? He's on record as a big fan. Other random thought: 'person having a mental breakdown at the bottom of a swimming pool' has become one of the odder cinematic / televisual cliches of the past decade.
Anyway, despite these misgivings, it looks like it might be alright.
When I started the trailer I didn't know he was the director -- and my first guess for who he's imitating iz actually more like making the Accessible Amblin version of Pablo Larraín. The cinematography looks tight ~
Yeah, Pablo Larraín is a good shout, actually.
We're not exactly awash with big budget romantic dramas these days, so it's nice that Cooper has decided to keep the art alive with his first two projects as a director.
Just saw this. Remarkable how little of Bernstein's life and career it manages to illuminate in its two hour runtime. An empty, posturing misfire, alas.
I guess a curious angle to consider the movie from would be, how much of it is about Felicia. Maybe the two things that stood out to me the most from the movie were how much it focuses on Felicia as Bernstein's backbone, confidante, and how much the movie is about 'upstaging.'
They both do it to each other, and even their kids take on the habit. I guess the film's thesis is that 'human' music, not music music but let's say the way we express ourselves, is chaotic. And this chaos without proper attention can shunt entire potentials (of conversations, of intimacy, of honesty) into the shadows.
That may well have been the intention, but, if that was his aim, it does rather beg the question why Cooper wanted to make a movie about Leonard Bernstein and Felicia Montealegre instead of a fictional dysfunctional marriage, given that the specifics of their careers and achievements are almost entirely sidelined and glossed over.
And quite apart from any qualms over its treatment of Bernstein's art, I also found the relationship drama uninvolving and underdeveloped.
This should follow the example of Fosse/Verdon and be developed as a mini series instead.