A Star is Born (2018)

Director: Bradley Cooper
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Dave Chappelle, Andrew Dice Clay, Anthony Ramos, Rafi Gavron, Greg Grunberg,
Running Time: 135 min.
Rating: R

★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

Bradley Cooper's A Star is Born is a tale of two movies. The first revolves around a drunk, self-destructive country rock star drowning in his troubled past who finds renewed creative purpose in discovering a new talent. It follows a trajectory not unlike 2009's Crazy Heart, with its lead actor channeling Kris Kristofferson in 1976's A Star is Born. The second is about a waitress and struggling part-time bar singer who suddenly gets her big break and falls in love with famous musician. For a little while, both two stories are beautifully told in lockstep, until they sharply diverge, splitting your allegiance and maddingly asking you to sympathize with a character who hasn't done anything to earn it. Worse yet, it's the wrong one. It's all downhill from there, taking us down a depressing path toward an inevitably doomed conclusion that's more frustrating than tragic.

In adapting material that's been previously brought to the screen multiple times with mixed results, Cooper makes a directorial debut that's unarguably impressive despite certain narrative weaknesses. He isn't blameless, but his direction, and especially his performance, are the least of the film's troubles. It starts strongly before grinding to a halt midway through and becoming the Lady Gaga Show. This isn't a knock on her so much as the character she's asked to play, who will test the patience of anyone who was even slightly on the fence about her casting. Musically, she's an inspired choice, but everything surrounding her just seems off the entire time, especially regarding the relationship at the heart of the film. By the time we get to an ending that doesn't work (and didn't the previous three times this has been made), I was confused as to what exactly I was supposed to think or feel. Alcoholism and drug addiction are diseases, but selling out isn't, as much as you may be tempted to rethink that after watching the "star" of the movie's title.

Famous country singer Jackson Maine (Cooper) prepares for each show by downing a mixture of booze and pills, and is only kept in check by his older half-brother and manager, Bobby (Sam Elliott). After a concert gig in California, Jack stumbles into a drag bar where he sees waitress and songwriter Ally (Gaga) perform. Instantly smitten and entranced by her performance, they're introduced and end up spending the night talking, as she confides in him her aspirations for a music career.

Inviting Ally to one of his concerts, Jack urges her to join him on stage to perform a song she's written, and after some initial hesitation, she agrees. With her career now off and running, they enter a romantic relationship together, but as her star rises with a new record deal and an overhauled image, Jack's continues to decline, Wrestling with addictions as he continues his longstanding feud with brother Bobby, a rift also develops in his relationship with Ally. The writing's on the wall: Jack needs to clean up his act, or risk losing everything.

The most rewarding scenes come early when we're still in the discovery stages of the story, both for the characters and audience. Of course, at the center of it is Ally and Jack's performance of the now ubiquitous Oscar-winning pop-power ballad, "Shallow," which is not only a huge, hooky powerhouse single that Gaga and Cooper sing the hell out of, but a more insightful distillation of the story's themes than so much of what follows. Everything from the opening credits leading into that moment when he calls her up to that stage are somewhat magical, and even if there are times when you doubt Jack would take this kind of interest in a drag club singer, Cooper puts it to rest with the sincerity of his performance.

Adopting a gravely voice and perpetually looking as if he awakened from a 10-hour nap, he's a more believable in this role than you'd expect and it's not a coincidence that the first half of the picture, focusing primarily on Jack, is the stronger one. Similarly, Gaga's best scenes as Ally (both onstage and off) come directly opposite Cooper, so it's a good thing nearly all of them are. It's only when Ally's made it that the story loses steam, devolving into a long-running therapy session that actually becomes a real challenge to sit through at times. Some of it stems from the fact that once this unknown waitress is plucked out of obscurity and discovered by Jack, there's no where for her to go but up while he continues his steady decline. And it's here where Gaga's casting, or really the casting of any famous singer, starts to present some problems.

Initially, we shared in Jack's sense of discovery of Ally because we've just never experienced Lady Gaga in such a grounded context before. It's kind of an odd observation, but because of the nature of her persona, she can becomes almost unrecognizable or invisible doing "regular" things like arguing with her dad (really well played by Andrew Dice Clay), being late for work, telling jokes, hanging out in parking lots or getting starstruck. She's great at all of this, but when the moment Ally signs that record deal with this obviously sleazy producer (Rafi Gavron), all bets are off. While you're never quite sure what exactly the movie wants you to think about that decision, it does seem to push Jack as a jealous drunk to be pitied for his out-of-control behavior. It's true, but Ally comes off as such a sellout and "her" music so spectacularly disposable, I'm not sure anyone could blame him.

These developments force Gaga to "play down" as Ally, who may as well now be Britney Spears if not the fact that it's unlikely she'd even deserve a residency in Vegas. And because Ally's transformation falls so squarely in the pop realm, we're jarringly reminded that a pop star is playing her. And of the one thing each incarnation of A Star Is Born has failed to do: Cast or make a rising star. It may seem insignificant, but it's maybe one of two elements that could have really helped since it appears Cooper insists on taking this story in a familiar direction...again.  

At one point a drunk Jack confronts Ally about her choices and we're clearly supposed to resent him and take her side for asserting independence in a male-driven industry. I think. But what should come off as the rantings of an alcoholic madman seem like sane, reasonable concerns directed at a record label puppet oblivious to the fact that she's popular and famous enough to entertain other options or even create some of her own. Sure, it's entirely possible Cooper's more self-aware than we think and there's some kind of meta sub-text going on in the screenplay regarding the pitfalls of fame, but none of it makes the screen. That's not to say there aren't positives to be found in these problematic second and third acts, even if most of them come from Matthew Libatique's cinematography and Cooper and Elliott's performances, which map out a complicated sibling rivalry gripping enough to carry its own film.

That the last twenty minutes feels like a depressingly cruel joke wouldn't be such a problem if the script had something more to say. There's also a scene at the Grammy Awards that's supposed to be dramatic but goes too over-the-top to be taken seriously, instead invoking uncomfortable laughs. While we should at least be grateful Cooper is smart enough not to go anywhere near the ludicrous event that closed the '76 version, it's maybe sadder that this incarnation started as something so much better than its predecessors. Maybe that's the point. Maybe we're supposed to be frustrated at these characters for wrecking each others lives, both of which were filled with so much promise. Unfortunately, the same could also be said for the film in which they appear. This take on A Star is Born does manages to put a fresh spin on a very familiar tale, but not without proving there are many different ways to make the same mistakes.