Bradley Cooper wowed me with A Star Is Born, but MAESTRO shows he’s a big-time director. This film ticked every single box for me from stand-up-and-cheer to jittering discomfort to tears streaming down my face. It’s a beautiful film and I learned things that’ll influence my writing for the foreseeable, and I loved even more.
LEARNED: The Flirting!
It’s a joy to watch people hardcore flirt, and Maestro brings the same sort of exuberant, A-grade courtship as A Star is Born. Remember Cooper and Lady Gaga outside the grocery store? With the peas!?
Here we get Cooper and Carey Mulligan in an empty theatre play-acting. Swoon. The writing lesson: when people are excited by someone, it spurs a daring and limitlessness because anything feels possible. Because flirting isn’t just a high-speed dance, it’s a test to see if the other person can keep up.
Co-writer Josh Singer (First Man; Spotlight) and Cooper have written flirtations that are buoyant and free, a white-hot beginning that makes the complications that lie in wait all the more brutal to witness.
