50 God-Tier Acting Moments Buried in Bad Movies
40. The Performance - Maestro
The 2024 Best Picture line-up at the Oscars was one of the very best of the century, but nearly every Best Picture line-up has its weak link, and this was no exception. The Oscars are a divisive topic at the very best of times, but in this case, pretty much everyone was on the same page: it was Maestro.
Bradley Cooper's Leonard Bernstein biopic, which he directed and starred in, was one of those cases of a weak screenplay being held up by an overqualified cast and crew. More specifically, Cooper and co-lead Carey Mulligan are excellent, and Maestro looks beautiful, but it's short on character development, conflict, or any real exploration of who Leonard Bernstein actually was.
A moment that perfectly sums up this contradictory clash of positive and negative qualities is when Bernstein conducts Mahler's Resurrection Symphony in England. Cooper acts the hell out of this scene, pouring all of his passion into it while his months of studying the art of conducting a musical orchestra are on full display.
He also directs it ingeniously, showing it all in a panning, rotating one-shot that eventually moves around to his wife, who is watching the performance and has forgiven him after a rocky patch in their relationship. The story of their relationship was poorly developed, so this represents Cooper filling in the gaps and lifting the whole movie up, both in front of the camera and behind it.