Is there anything more cinematic than a great love affair? Not according to Bradley Cooper. He follows his heartbreaking directorial debut, A Star Is Born, with another fraught romance, telling the story of the relationship between American composer Leonard Bernstein (played by Cooper himself) and his actress wife Felicia Montealegre (Carey Mulligan).

With her clipped, Katharine Hepburn-esque speech, Felicia is a stabilising, nurturing influence on the furiously talented, sexually voracious Leonard, who is shown telling a baby that he’s slept with both its parents. Felicia agrees to share her husband with lovers, both male and female, in exchange for discretion, a decision she will come to regret.

Setting the action, of course, to Bernstein’s own remarkable music, Cooper sweeps us up in the whirlwind of the couple’s courtship and Bernstein’s rise as a conductor and composer. It’s a first half boasting oodles of Old Hollywood pizzazz and rat-a-tat dialogue (Cooper co-wrote the script with Spotlight’s Josh Singer), before we start to see the dissatisfaction on all fronts.

Dynamically shot by Matthew Libatique (Black Swan, A Star Is Born) in both creamy monochrome and warm, grainy colour, it's a film that doesn’t linger anywhere long (West Side Story, for instance, warrants a mere mention). Instead, it captures more of a sense of the couple’s story, aping Bernstein’s frenzied creativity and inability to settle.

Wearing a controversial prosthetic nose which, in fairness, gives him a decent resemblance to Bernstein, Cooper goes beyond impersonation, delivering a vigorous, tortured turn that’s beautifully complimented by Mulligan’s more delicate work. Together they ensure that this is a biopic to savour.

Maestro is in cinemas from Friday 24 November and on Netflix from Wednesday 20 December.