A STAR WASN’T BORN

So, I watched A Star is Born over the weekend. I’m sure, even if you aren’t a regular movie goer, that the “buzz” around this movie has made it to your newsfeed. Positioned as potentially being a massive Oscar contender, starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper, the film has received a lot of acclaim and critical praise. It’s also Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut.

Although the hype around… yeah, not good. Let me elaborate. The soundtrack is good. The music is brilliant actually. The acting was good… they are both good actors for sure. But there was something about each performance that felt – forced?

Bradley Cooper played a famous singer who is an alcoholic. His accent was at times hard to understand as he was doing this whole mumble croaky thing. And Lady Gaga was playing a young talented singer/song writer… I mean I guess she had a lot of material to use from her actual life for this role. But sometimes it just felt like I was watching Lady Gaga acting and not her character being a character if that makes any sense.

But there are two aspects of this film that really annoyed me. First of all, the plot is interesting at the start but takes a really strange turn towards the end. The characters’ motivations are never made clear. Their back story is murky which makes their trajectory and their arcs in the film unbelievable which in turn leaves you with a sappy tornado of emotions. And even though Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper weren’t over acting, given the randomness of some aspects of the story, that lacked (for me anyway) any context, they sort of looked… stupid? Even how the tension of how the film builds up is jarring and either too subtle or too extreme.

The randomness of all this extends into the cinematography and the way the film was edited. It’s pretty obvious that for his directorial debut, Bradley Cooper wanted to “break the rules” a little. Which is fine but at the same time, it sort of felt like someone who just found all these really cool Instagram filters and uses them all at the same time. It felt as though there was a lens flaring right into my eye in every other scene, the way he would cut from one scene to the next felt forced – like he was trying to be impactful. There were WAY too many close ups or weird angles. I think it was all in an attempt to give a “behind the scenes”/documentary feel to the film, which in some instances worked and other instances just felt like it was too much.

I won’t even tell you the issues I had with the ending of the film. That will take me another three columns. All in all, I would say it was an OK film. The sound track and interesting dialogue throughout the film saves it. Is it Oscar worthy? I don’t think so. Will it get a lot of Oscar attention? I bet you it will.

MAAN JALAL

Pop culture enthusiast, Willy Wonka Golden Ticket hunter and Hogwarts Graduate Class of 2001

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