Hollywood favourite Bradley Cooper stars as American conductor and composer Leonard Bernstein in his second directorial effort, Maestro. With career-best performances from Cooper and co-star Carey Mulligan, stunning production design and a sweeping score composed by Bernstein himself, the film is a delightful examination of a couple’s relationship tested by the pressures of fame, as well as a surefire Oscar contender

Cooper opens his film with an ageing Lenny – his hair a shock of white, his patrician voice hoarse from constant smoking – sitting at his piano for a TV interview in which he mourns Felicia’s death. The makeup alone deserves an Oscar, but technical mastery is only a way to greater intimacy

Camera wizard Matthew Libatique shoots with a poet’s eye, switching from colour to black and white. The first time we see Leonard Bernstein as a young man, he’s woken by a phone call that will change his life. Behind him is a heavy curtain, an inch of light peeping in below it, that – it turns out when he tears it open – is a window dressing, but could equally well have concealed a stage. It’s November 1943, Bruno Walters is ill and Bernstein is to make a last-minute debut conducting the New York Philharmonic. He raps out a celebratory rhythm on his male lover’s bottom. In one, unbroken shot, we soar with Bernstein from the bedroom to the theatre – his two great stages

Lenny, as everyone calls him, comes at life with a ravenous hunger, his carnal desire for both sexes matched by music that encompassed everything from symphonies, operas and youth concerts to Broadway. Snobs claim that ‘West Side Story,’ ‘On the Town’ and ‘Candide trivialized Lenny’s ambitions as a classical artist. What rubbish. Bernstein becomes the first Jewish American conductor to win global acclaim and ‘West Side Story’ is constantly in play

And, as if things couldn’t get any better, Lenny attends a party thrown by his sister Shirley (Sarah Silverman) and meets Chilean actress Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan). Mulligan captures Felicia’s patrician, pan-continental accent and steely resolve in a masterful performance, one that, as she succumbs painfully to breast cancer, guarantees her an Oscar nomination. The real Felicia was a working actress when she met Leonard. She also knew, even early on, that he was bisexual – and that she was going to have to ignore his side relationships to take on the role of a lifetime: Mrs. Maestro

As the years go on, their relationship is tested – Bernstein struggles to balance his obsession with music with his love life. With a non-linear storytelling structure, Maestro feels less like a biopic and more like a scrapbook of selective memories of the Bernsteins’ lives, showing career highs mixed with the trials that come with a domestic relationship

Felicia accepts Lenny’s addiction to men until, well, she can’t. Their blowout in the cavernous New York apartment they share with their three adored children is shot at a distance, yet you feel the emotional bruises as festive balloons from the Thanksgiving parade drift by outside. Just as a giant Snoopy floats by the window felicia cries out “If you’re not careful, you’re going to die a lonely old queen”

The killer moment in a film brimming over with them is Bernstein conducting Mahler’s Second Symphony at Ely Cathedral in 1976. The camera rests on the conductor as Bernstein channels one of his own heroes — and it’s one of the longest, uninterrupted sequences of music on film in recent memory, while Mahler’s epically scaled music washes over the viewer like a tidal wave. Cooper revealed that he spent six years learning how to conduct just these six minutes of music – live on set with real musicians – in the maestro’s style. His commitment is total and electrifying

The scene culminates with Lenny rushing off the stage to thundering applause to throw his arms around Felicia, nearly crushing her with bear hugs and devouring kisses. In Cooper’s vision, Lenny would do the same to the music itself if he could. And the audience. And the world

How do you live with that? In this portrait of a flawed artist whose self-absorption could be dangerous to those who got too close, Maestro is definitely a challenge. But one well worth taking