A Star is Born (Review)

Hey, Everyone, Have You Heard of A Star is Born?

After months of being bludgeoned by trailers and advertising for A Star is Born, it finally hit theaters. It’s the first film that Bradley Cooper is directing and it’s easy to tell. On the one hand, he pulls out some tremendous performances from all the actors in this film, but the overall structure of the film is a bit of a mess. I have little doubt that A Star is Born will get plenty of love at the Oscars, especially when it comes to performances and the songs, but it definitely does not deserve the best picture nomination.

While I’m not going to take into account that A Star is Born is a remake of a remake (a remake-ception, if you will), I feel like it warrants a mention because we’ve all seen this movie in some form or another. It’s a movie that wears its heart on its sleeve and choreographs everything that’s going to happen from a mile away. In other words, while the actors are all tremendous, there are no twists or turns, no surprises when it comes to A Star is Born, which makes it a little boring. No matter how emotional it manages to get at certain times, it’s so obvious that it loses any edge it might have had.

Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper are absolutely electric on screen together (fortunate considering, not all singers are decent actors). Both of them turn in the performances of their career as a pair of star-crossed lovers meeting as one falls from fame and the other rises to it. However, A Star is Born seems to glaze over the scenes that should have packed much more emotional punches to them. When Bradley Cooper’s Jackson Mane first says “I love you” to Lady Gaga’s Ally, it should be a beautiful moment that stays with audiences because it’s so meaningful to the characters. Instead, you’d completely miss it if you blinked. This is something though that happens repeatedly through A Star is Born though. Because of this it changes from a film that should have been an emotional powerhouse to a movie that’s going to make finding a good monologue a lot easier for freshman drama students.

Bradley Cooper is definitely going to go far as a director because he’s such a talented actor. Because of his vast experience over the years in such a wide variety of roles, he knows exactly how to help each of the performers in A Star is Born to get the absolute most out of every second of screen time. Not only does he get a performance worth writing home about out of Lady Gaga, but even veterans like Sam Elliot and Dave Chappelle knock it out of the park. His experience in front of the camera has certainly served him well, but I don’t think he took into account a lot of the other storytelling elements that are necessary to make a film truly great. While he might not have been as much as a success with his first outing as, say, Jordan Peele, I think that A Star is Born shows he has tremendous potential and I’m going to be looking forward to whatever his next project might be.

I certainly don’t think that A Star is Born is movie of the year material. It’s overly sentimental and too obvious for its own good. The romance between Cooper and Gaga certainly has some moments, but that’s mostly because they’re so good together. The actual moments that are supposed to make us all go “awe” as we watch them grow closer together don’t pack much punch. Even the deadly battle with alcoholism that Cooper’s character deals with seems underwhelming (though there are one or two scenes which were unnerving). It’s a film that seems like it’s focused on letting its actors showcase their talents through carefully set scenes allowing them to make the most of the material they’re given, but that’s something that feels better suited for a stage play rather than a film.

I want to be perfectly clear that A Star is Born is not a bad movie. It’s just nowhere near as great as it wanted to believe it is. Cooper does a tremendous job, but his inexperience proves to be detrimental to this film as a whole. I have little doubt that A Star is Born will nab a few nominations for Best Actor or Actress (possibly even supporting), but it has too many fumbles for it to earn a best picture nomination, and if it does that’s a huge mistake on the part of The Academy. That being said, I think it’s a well-done movie overall, but it’s not an enjoyable movie to watch. I certainly respect it a lot more than I did when I first sat down to see it, but respect doesn’t buy a lot of popcorn around these parts.