A Star is Born

A Star is Born is a film that you want to love more than you actually do.

It’s perfectly cast with Ally (Lady Gaga) as the up and coming no-name, bar singer that a country music legend, Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), stumbles upon while searching for his next bottle of tequila.

She’s perfect.

She’s unassuming, creative and more than anything searching for a challenge in life and a way to express it. Her vulnerability, especially in her chance encounter with Maine is what makes movies great.

To step out into the stage of a parking lot with an audience member of one and sing your hopes and dreams, sadness and failures takes as much guts as doing it on a stage in front of thousands.

There’s no sheath here. We as the audience are alone and as uncovered as them in that moment.

Paired with Gaga’s Ally is Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Maine, who soars with the vocals and melancholy disposition of life very reminiscent of Jeff Bridges turn in Crazy Heart.

It’s a true southwestern twang and feel from what I heard, but with that aside the vocals are amazing and the sound echo’s that of real life county-blues singers.

You feel and hear the grit of the electric guitar and the sound of sadness and despair as Maine toils in his old but not forgotten hits, while wasting away in town to town with a bottle of liquor next to him.

And this is the truly great part to f the film, which is basically a rip off of every origin story that marvel or DC has every came out with, because it essentially is a rise of a star.

Like Peter Parker or Wonder Woman the best part of the film is seeing these characters rise up, their origin story and how they discover their powers and create or do something wonderful in this world.

But with this power or fame, choices are made, most notably plot devices for the characters in a story to create drama and this is where first time director Bradley Cooper leads the story astray.

I get Ally’s decision in the film from the rational financial perspective but from the audience perspective I found it languishing and boring.

We go from truly great artist to cookie-cutter molds of Britney spears and Blake Shelton which undoubtedly was the point I believe that Cooper intended but it didn’t resonate with me as a viewer.

Nor did his clustered and messy push toward the climax and his last minute narrative devices created out of nowhere to usher the viewer toward it’s emotional but disappointing finale.

There’s a lot of sad, inspiring, heart-felt parts throughout this film. It’s a movie worth seeing, especially if you’re a fan of musical films.

However, it reeks in many ways as having a novice directorial touch and despite Coopers’ and Lady Gaga’s performances it’s simply a good film to a remake that’s been done twice before.