Who'd have thunk it? Serial romcommer Bradley Cooper has evolved into a director of real films, here a biopic of the mercurial composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein. Cooper plays Bernstein with a prosthetic nose , which drew accusations stateside of 'Jewface', his long-suffering actress wife also played by a non-Jew, Carey Mulligan, but Bernstein's children didn't complain, and the depiction of a man with numerous foibles and demons is a respectful one.
What does strike one as somewhat odd is the little attention paid to his musicals such as West Side Story which, despite all his other achievements, Bernstein is best remembered for. The focus is almost exclusively on his fractious marriage and soaring dreams. Those it covers well and quite affectingly at times, but you have to go in accepting that it's only an impressionistic portrait from a non-musician rather than the full picture.
6/10
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