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Two unwatchable films/Maestro & Saltburn

If Maestro and Saltburn are acclaimed as two of the best films of 2023 I would not like to see the two worst.

I thought Maestro was the biopic of Leonard Bernstein but it is not; it is the story of his marriage his wife played by Carey Mulligan.

She occupies the film stage front, left and centre – so much so that you would not have appreciated Bernstein was one of the greatest musical figures of the 20th Century century – a composer, conductor and the creator of West Side Story. 

Of course it would not be easy to be married to a philandering bisexual but there is an uncomfortable leitmotiv in the film that the wife was an equal talent.

Bradley Cooper studied the rôle of Bernstein for years used prosthetics but for all of this I never felt he was within the skin of Bernstein.

When their daughter visited the mother in a cancer hospice I said “Enough already” and turned off Netflix, never to resume.

Saltburn is a sort of updated Brideshead Revisited.  

It’s not as funny and despite a fine cast of Richard E Grant and Rosamund Pike, not as well acted.

The story is of two Oxford graduates.

One Oliver – coming from Liverpool lower middle class stock – and the other Felix, a decadent aristo who lived in the mansion Saltburn to which he invites Oliver to stay.

The dialogue would not be out of place in scaffolding, or a building site, as every other word is ‘fxxking’ and the scenes are the pretentious side of stylish.

Again I could not make it to the end.