In 2015 pop diva Lady Gaga (a.k.a. Stefani Gernanotta) showed she could sing with the big kids by performing an irony free, refreshingly straight forward medley of songs from the Sound of Music at the Academy Awards ceremony to commemorate that film's 50th anniversary. She further demonstrated her range a year later with her folk and rock influenced album Joanne. This latter day queen of the dance floor "subverts expectations" again in '18, mixing standards, rock, country, and, of course her usual genre, danceable pop, while also showing she can act, in her latest project, A Star is Born.
Lady Gaga, though, is a symbol of what's right about this third official remake of the 1937 classic movie, but also what's wrong with it. By herself, she's great. Along with music you'd expect, you also get her channeling Edith Piaf, while throwing in a sly tribute to Judy Garland, who stared in the most successful version of this story back in 1954. I don't what to over sell her acting, but she is certainly up to the task here. Bradly Cooper shows some range of his own. He not only stars, but also sings, quite well, and directs for the first time. Andrew Dice Clay, Sam Eliot and Dave Chappelle offer solid supporting work. The concert scenes were filmed in front of live audiences between sets at actual music festivals, adding to movie's authentic feel. Each of these elements work well, and individually everyone involved deserves praise, especially Lady Gaga, who earns her top billing.
All this should be enough for me to make a positive recommendation, but it isn't. I found something lacking. By the middle of the movie I was bored, quite frankly, checking the time, wondering how exactly the movie was going to dispose of it's tragic hero. So far, the previous cinematic iterations have offered us two ocean drownings and a drunken dune buggy accident. Here we get diversionary foreshadowings, meant to keep us guessing how he will end it all, but end it all he does, as he must, I guess.
Jackson Maine (Cooper) is an established countrified rock star (the music is tough to label, since the loud numbers are certainly rock and the ballads, definitely country). He's haunted by a troubled childhood, suffering from alcohol and drug addiction. Added to his difficulties is a severer case of tinnitus which is robbing him if his hearing. On the way back from a gig, out of liquor, he has his driver stop at the first open bar they pass. It ends up being a transgender establishment, but since booze is booze, what the heck. While there he catches a performance by the lone cisgender woman on the bill, Ally (Ms Germanotta) and is blown away by her performance of La Vie en Rose. By the end of a night of running around, getting into minor scrapes, Jack is completely smitten. After hearing a fragment of a tune she's been working on he encourages Ally to write songs. He insists she travel with him to his next gig, and after some serious persuading, that borders on stalking, she hops on the private jet. Once at the show, Jack draws her on stage to sing the number she demoed for him the night before, complete with harmony parts, chord changes and a bridge (I know, it's a movie).
From there film pretty much follows the story that the others do. Ally gets an agent, she and Jack marry, and along the way she's introduced to the dark side of the cut throat music industry. Jack becomes jealous at his discovery's rise. He descends further into addiction as she continues to ascend up the pop music ladder. He embarrasses her publicly at what should have been her triumphant moment. When they reconcile Ally decides to put her still fledgling career on hold to help him recover. Her agent tells Jack what a useless drag on Ally he is, which prompts him to finish what he first attempted when he was 13 years old.
Knowing how this was going to end the only suspense was over what method of suicide would be employed. At a certain point watching this movie was like playing the board game "Clue." All I could think of was "will it be drunk on a motor cycle over a cliff, or prescription pain killer coma in the swimming pool?" It was neither of those two options, but if you're paying attention you'll figure it out before the end. I was holding out hope that they would really subvert expectations and let the poor slob live, which is strange for me because I'm always complaining about unearned happy endings. While it's probably better they didn't go that rout, it's the only thing that would have really gotten my attention.
It's more than just that the film's themes and ending are predictable for anyone familiar with the previous versions that left me yawning. The fatal flaws with A Star is Born 2018 revolve around motivation and pacing. Jack is portrayed as being sweet, sensitive and, almost ego free. He's incredibly open and supportive of Ally’s growth as a singer songwriter it’s hard to believe that he would turn on her simply out of jealousy, especially since his career is humming along just fine. We never really see him preoccupied by the young turks coming up behind him, as we do Kris Kristofferson in the 1976 film. There's a scene late in the second act that hints at sweating the competition, but it seems forced. The turn of events comes out of nowhere, and seems like it happened because the script needed him to have a melt down right then. In general, he's a happy, if depressed, drunk so his eventual flashes of belligerence, as mild as they are, still don't make a lot of sense.
There were other things that didn't make sense to me. When he ridicules Ally for her stylistic turn to dance music, it’s dismissed as a cover for his envy. I don’t have a hard time at all believing that a “serious” rocker would look down on his prized discovery for turning herself into a pop tart. On the other hand, I also can see him going along with it because their styles appeal to two different audiences, so in a way there’s no real competition at all. Think about it. In the real world does Jack White really compete for the same entertainment dollars as Ariana Grande? Plus, professional musicians tend to have a broader appreciation for the wide world of pop and classical styles than the fans do. So anything is possible there, but the way the character is established I don't see him turning into a jerk since it's never established that he was capable of that before. I also questioned why she had to wait for the agent to pick her up in the first place. I find it hard to believe that Jack’s people wouldn't have signed her up once she started singing at his shows. If he wanted her for himself I’m sure Jack could have set her up with representation and a record deal pretty quick.
While the movie goes against the current Hollywood trend of concocting a contrived happy ending, it still makes Jack's character too nice. We have to love this man, and by extension the actor playing him, so the choices made may render him pathetic, but still completely sympathetic to the audience. The late Burt Reynolds once said that what separates the B list actors from the Stars is that a Star is dangerous. He gives off at least a small dose of menace, to go along with the requisite charm and good looks. To paraphrase the old cliché, the danger is why men wanted to be someone like Reynolds, Robert Mitchum or Sean Connery, and women want to be with them. Cooper never hints that he's dangerous to anyone but himself. While Lady Gaga and Cooper have real chemistry, I see Jackson Maine as too much of a self pitying sad sack for the relationship to leave the friend zone. Unless, that is, Ally's just a user taking advantage of her new friend to get ahead, which again would go against the character as established from the beginning.
So, every body does their jobs really well. The acting is great and I really liked the music, even the pop stuff, which usually isn't my bag. But because the Jackson Maine character seemed off, and thus motivations questionable, it never felt right as a whole package.
Which brings me to Bradly Cooper's direction, which again points to what works and what doesn't. I liked his visual style a lot. I had the feeling he was doing more than a little experimentation with lighting and angles, which I think is a good thing. On the down side the movie stalls at times in the second act, but seems to creep to a stop in the last third. The musical finale, when the star is finally born, paying tribute to her dead husband while stepping out into the spotlight on her own, is the crowning moment of the story. In this case, it's Lady Gaga's moment to shine. Judy Garland and Barbara Streisand were established stars of stage and screen already when they made their movies (Janet Gaynor plays an actress, so the '37 original didn't end with a musical number). But Stefani Germanotta is truly birthing her movie career here, if you will. She deserved the stage to herself, so I was put off by the ill-timed flashback. It was supposed to make me cry, instead all I thought was, "there's that jealous, selfish, Jack again, ruining Ally's big spot."
So, a mixed reaction. Good acting, good music, signs that Bradly Cooper could develop into a fine director and that Lady Gaga can make it in the movies. But fuzzy characterizations, muddled motivations and erratic pacing keeps A Star is Born from really taking off. There are other reasons I'm not sure the movie works, that have more to do with if the story itself even makes sense in 2018. But I've written enough for now. Maybe I'll get into that further on down the line.
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