As we approach the end of the year, that means one thing for movies: awards season! It’s that magical time when studios make big pushes for their films vying for Oscar glory and countless pundits try and predict what will be nominated and what will eventually take home the gold. But what exactly makes for an award-winning movie? What separates the Titanics of the world from the Giglis?
Enter “Oscar bait”—you know, those kinds of films that seem to dominate the Oscars year in and year out. The films about big issues, actors transforming via weight loss/gain or prosthetics, true stories, and of course, the almighty biopic. On the surface, Bradley Cooper’s Maestro is the very definition of Oscar bait: Cooper (who also co-wrote the film) stars as Leonard Bernstein, the legendary Jewish composer beloved in Hollywood. The story not only follows his illustrious career, but it also charts his marriage to Felicia Montealegre Cohn (Carey Mulligan). That’s a classic biopic storytelling combo.
But looks can be deceiving. Instead, Maestro (now in theaters; streaming Dec. 25 on Netflix) skirts typical genre conventions to get to the heart of who Bernstein was. Where the average, stuffy biopic renders its subjects practically celibate, Maestro fully leans into Bernstein’s hedonistic desires. There’s a lot to Cooper’s take on the famed artist, but what’s especially striking is that this Bernstein is incredibly horny.
There’s considerable debate as to whether Bernstein was a gay man or bisexual. Maestro certainly seems to belong to the latter camp; despite the struggles between Felicia and Leonard (and there are plenty), there is no doubt of the passion the two share for one another. At the same time, it doesn’t hide how Bernstein always had eyes for others, particularly men—a lust Maestro explores fully.
Early into the film, Bernstein answers the phone, cloaked in shadow. When he finally opens the curtain, we see a man lying in bed with him. Before Bernstein runs off to start his day, he slaps his lover’s ass like a bongo drum. This, as they say, is cinema. But it also reveals Bernstein as more than a man who has sex with men; it highlights his youthful, exuberant energy and sense of playfulness. Uptight, stuffy men do not typically play with other people’s bottoms like instruments, after all.
We learn that this man is David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), a lyricist who collaborated with Bernstein throughout the years. It’s clear they were romantically entangled, and when Leonard introduces Felicia to David, David’s unable to hide the heartbreak on his face that his lover has moved on. Years later, Bernstein runs into David again, now with his wife and a child of their own. Leonard tells the child with a beaming smile on his face: “I slept with both your parents! What can I say—I love too much.”
From there, Bernstein and his former lover tearfully embrace, knowing that they can never have the lives they both dearly want. Bernstein playfully tussles Oppenheim’s hair in a moment that’s filled with so much lust, love, and desire that it puts most sex scenes to shame. This is a film unafraid to shy away from the reality of closeted life in the ’50s, ’60s, and beyond, and particularly the crushing effect it had on Bernstein himself.
At the same time, he’s always on the lookout for more love, more passion—what he gets from Felicia is quite simply not enough. Before the pair get married, Felicia says she wants to see all of the incredible work Bernstein has done with his music. They’re whisked away to the stage in a quasi-fantasy sequence. Felicia asks Bernstein what it is he wants from life: ”I want a lot of things,” Bernstein responds. It’s then a male dancer appears dressed in navy garb (a reference to On the Town, which he composed the music for) and begins dancing. Bernstein leans in on his chair and is fully enraptured by the dancer, and from the gleam in his eye, it's far more than the choreography Bernstein finds desirable. Felicia sees this and has a moment of realization: that her husband is interested in a whole lot more than just her.
It’s then that Bernstein becomes the dancer, imitating the moves of the man before. Felicia is deeply amused, but we can tell that, for Bernstein, the moment feels deeper. His movements are free and expressive, and he seems incredibly at ease. For Bernstein, this is exactly what he wants to be: free, sexual, and unstoppable. Perhaps if polyamory had been more firmly established in Bernstein’s time, it would have been an ideal fit for his and Felicia’s marriage.
In his final years, the composer is shown dancing the night away with a student decades younger than him at a nightclub. It’s a thrilling, emotional moment as the two romantically embrace, lips close to each other. Cooper then cuts to a rather triumphant shot of Bernstein, who’s framed as if he’s finally taken the throne. He’s here in this club, dancing like he was the sailor he imagined himself being decades before; fierce, sexy, sexual, and alive.
Fascinatingly, Maestro doesn’t feature any actual sex scenes, only tantalizing looks and post-coital embraces. Yet the film is so full of vibrant passion that it still manages to convey intense sexual needs and desires without the act itself. Cooper does such a great job channeling sexual energy into his performance that it seems as if the maestro is having sex all the time anyway. And it goes much deeper than just sex; Maestro is all about intimacy. But it’s rather extraordinary that we’ve got a biopic that has no interest in being a traditional, chaste, nearly puritanical portrait, diving headfirst into the emotion of Leonard Bernstein—flaws, sex drive, and all.
