This one was a big disappointment and thus will be a short one. Not that I thought that I would be as thrilled as on day 2 (hard to achieve). Based on “A Star is Born”, I expected to see a decent production, nothing very original but something that would probably make me slightly sentimental and bring me to some reasonable tears. Even these moderate (at least according to me) expectations were not met.
I am actually quite surprised to read the (overly, again only according to me) positive reviews this morning.
A decent production it quite was – my praise goes to Bradley Cooper and his very convincing incarnation of Bernstein as an orchestra conductor. These scenes are actually quite fascinating – one is dragged within the orchestra and sees Bernstein’s passionate conducting as if he were right in front of us. That is the big (and only… aaagain according to me) plus of this movie.
Original it was definitely not (except for the above mentioned scenes).
As for the sentimental me and the expected little tears, they were awaited until the end of the movie but never showed up. The movie pretends to be a jump into the intimate life of Bernstein and his wife (and three kids) – taking into account that his attraction towards men, made it slightly complicated to the least. I however felt that it was very difficult to relate to the characters as most of the scenes were made of noisy insignificant party conversations. A hint about what is going on in the background is given here and there through a short exchange between husband and wife or just a sentence. But it remained way too much at the surface for me to feel anything.
The highlight of the day thus remains our 7 hours boat trip through the venetian laguna – that had a bumpy end to it that I shall share with some of you in private. The islands and the nature around were definitely way much more worth watching than Cooper’s “Maestro”.
Klara's cinema 