‘A STAR IS BORN’
R 2:15
It’s hard not to go into “A Star Is Born “without a lot of prejudgments. Even if you haven’t seen the other three versions, the mere fact that they exist, and with such formidable talent, is enough to make anyone scoff at the fact that Hollywood keeps dusting off this well-worn story about fame and love and addiction. And then you throw in the fact that it was made by a first-time director, who also happens to be a movie star, no less, and the whole thing seems even more dubious. Leave that all at the door, though, because “A Star Is Born,” is simply terrific — a big-scale cinematic delight that will have the masses singing, swooning and sobbing along with it.
It’s quite a feat from Bradley Cooper, who directed, co-wrote, produced and stars in the film. Cooper plays Jackson Maine, a massively popular singer-songwriter whose path intersects with an unknown and overlooked talent named Ally (a magnificent Lady Gaga) and the two become entangled as his star fades and hers rises.
When the film starts, Jackson is at the height of his fame, the type of fame where you can be an alcoholic teetering on the edge because you’re talented and charismatic and you
make too many people too much money and, besides, you’re basically functioning aside from the tinnitus.
Cooper puts the viewer right with Jackson as he takes the stage at a big festival. His routine, you imagine, doesn’t alter that much: Pop the pills. Drink the drink. Take the hat off. Play. Sing. Exit stage left to drink some more. Only this night, he ends up somewhere a little off his regular path, at a drag bar where Ally wakes him out of his ambling stupor with “La Vie En Rose.” And with a starmaking close-up of Ally, Jackson, and the audience, falls in love.
Cooper and Gaga have incredible chemistry. Before you know it, he’s asking her to come up on stage with him to sing her song, “Shallow,” which
someone films, puts on YouTube and creates a viral sensation.
The first hour of “A Star Is Born” is downright electrifying — funny, exciting, sexy and wholly lived-in. Characters you just met feel like old friends, from the drag queens at the club to Ally’s father (Andrew Dice Clay) and his fellow drivers. Sam Elliott, as Jackson’s brother, might only have 15 minutes of screen time, but it’s enough to break your heart (and probably earn him some awards love too). But like all good things, the engine of that first hour only gets the film so far, and the second half has its shortcomings.
But the actors and the filmmaking hold up “A Star Is Born” where the story cannot. Gaga is a gifted actress, natural, vulnerable and strong as she goes toeto-toe with Cooper in what might be his best performance. And as a director, well, he is the real deal and, with this sort of introduction, definitely far from the shallow now.
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Andrew Dice Clay and Sam Elliot. (Language throughout, some sexuality/nudity and substance abuse.)