| A bio-pic, if it’s going to be any good (and most of them aren’t), needs a story, not just a whirlwind sampling from the great man’s or woman’s brilliant life. This is a truth that some “Maestro” detractors didn’t seem to grasp last year. Bradley Cooper’s polarizing film portrayed the story of a marriage and a family, the rest of Leonard Bernstein’s munificent talents (composer, conductor, teacher) alluded to but not made central. The marital story held the movie together. Now comes word that Martin Scorsese, for his next project, has got hold of a great story for a bio-pic: the stormy marriage between Ava Gardner and Frank Sinatra. Scorsese wants Jennifer Lawrence to play Gardner and Leonardo DiCaprio to be his Sinatra. Neither looks anything like the original, but both have the risk-taking temperament and capacity for rage and wildness required for the roles. Gardner, more than thirty years after her death, remains one of the most beautiful women to have ever worked in Hollywood. She was smart, direct, unafraid. She was also serious about drinking and sex, and didn’t much care for acting. As I wrote in 2013, shortly after a volume of Gardner’s memoirs came out, she gave only a couple of great performances—in roles in which she was obviously playing herself. Still, few actresses have created more affection or more regret. Let us hope the Scorsese film happens soon. —David Denby | 
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