Bradley Cooper and Carey Mulligan in Maestro (Jason McDonald/Netflix)

For one of the great surprises of 2023, Bradley Cooper, in his second directorial effort (after a revelatory debut with A Star is Born), has created an impressionistic tapestry of one of the greatest and most ubiquitous classical artists of the 20th century, Leonard Bernstein. The quintessential American conductor, Leonard was endowed with talent that shone in every area he explored: musician, composer, teacher, you name it. Cooper takes on the physical task of embodying this titan of the arts, with the help of the excellent prosthetic makeup by Kazu Hiro. Cooper perhaps recognized in Leonard a role model who inspires a film that feels less like another run-of-the-mill biopic and more of a painful and beautiful transfiguration.

Leonard’s wife, Felicia Montealegre Cohn Bernstein (an extraordinary Carey Mulligan, giving a career best performance), shares the spotlight. Centering the storyline of Felicia as well challenges the unfortunate tradition of a martyred wife destined for a thankless supporting actress role. Yes, you hear the music that gives a vivid impression of who Leonard was. However, the film is primarily a duet between Leonard and Felicia, and becomes an epic love story and an adult examination of a marriage full of wounds and scars. Cooper and Mulligan share the credit for delivering two of the finest performances you’ll see this year.

The film begins with a young Leonard playing bongos on the buttocks of his male lover, David Oppenheim (Matt Bomer), a moment which introduces right away his sexuality, as he celebrates the news of his unexpected debut to conduct the New York Philharmonic as a last-minute substitution. This edge-of-glory moment is portrayed with stunning and seamless camera work, moving from a Manhattan studio apartment to the stage of Carnegie Hall, from Leonard in his underwear to wearing a suit and tie for the performance.

The first part of the movie remains true to the buoyant beginning: smooth, magical, with luminous black-and-white photography reminiscent of Astaire and Rogers musicals. This is also how Leonard’s budding relationship with Felicia is portrayed when they meet at a bohemian party in New York, both free-spirited and uncomplicated, trying their luck in the arts—she’s an actress—with an almost childlike openness. While Leonard is in the process of composing the music that would inspire the musical On the Town, a dreamy ballet serves as an imaginative narrative device depicting the courtship and consolidation of their romance, with the actors dancing alongside the male dancers dressed as sailors performing the ballet Fancy Free. Felicia accepts this charming and charismatic man as he is, while he appears willing to embrace the respectable commitments of a decent and heterosexual lifestyle by marrying her and starting a family—a convenient image for someone aiming to be recognized as the greatest American conductor, with the fame that entails.

The dynamic cinematography by Matthew Libatique gives way to a grainy color palette in the second half. Here, Leonard and Felicia’s marital frictions become more prominent, reaching to a climactic single-take scene with overlapping dialogues and raw performances while a Thanksgiving parade unfolds outside their Fifth Avenue apartment. (The kitschy image of a huge inflatable Snoopy looming outside, with Leonard left alone after an explosive confrontation, is a psychologically brilliant composition.) For Felicia, living in Leonard’s shadow and enduring his endless parade of male lovers, becomes an accumulating toll that eventually drives them apart.

Maestro traces the delicate borders that separate performers from creators (Leonard was both), and public life from an inner private world in its kaleidoscopic portrayal of a man aware that his talent and life-of-the-party persona belonged to the world, though a burden for his closest friends and family. The script avoids re-creating too many of Leonard’s well-known performances that are easily available online. However, the passion, mannerism—and the music!—are there in a transfixing sequence when an older Leonard conducts Mahler’s Symphony No. 2 in England’s Ely Cathedral, which leads to a reconciliation with the love of his life.

There’s no sophomore slump for Bradley Cooper’s career as a filmmaker. If A Star Is Born was a lightning-in-a-bottle miracle hard to replicate, then Maestro is the work of a multitalented here-to-stay artist testing limits and surpassing them. If any doubt remains, this collaboration with Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, credited here as producers, seems like an affirmation.