“A Star is Born” Review: A Safe Performance
Bradley Cooper brings the timeless tragedy to the modern day in his latest, safest iteration of the story.
A Star is Born is the latest attempt at bringing the timeless tale of a celebrity’s origin turned tragic to the 21st century. Directed by and starring Bradley Cooper alongside Lady Gaga, it’s interesting to come back to Cooper’s directorial debut following his latest musical/filmic endeavor in Maestro. Another critical darling that had expectations of an Oscar from the trailer’s first minutes of release, Maestro and A Star is Born share some of Cooper’s consistencies that at the beginning of either film prove promising, but by the midway points of both projects, seem like directorial hang-ups more than innovative signatures. While certainly modernizing the story with a grounded aesthetic, mature tone, and a contemporary depiction of the music industry, Cooper’s direction coupled with an elliptical script and editing style fail to make this commentary land with any impact. While by no means offensive, A Star is Born props itself up with self-importance that people claimed tainted Maestro, but I simply saw more of in Cooper’s initial stint into directing. I don’t think the film is by any means performative; rather, simply ineffective at investigating its central focus, which is where Cooper makes his biggest departure from the source material in a move that seems to be a thematic throughline for the blossoming career of an artist obsessed with depicting tortured artists.
A Star is Born demonstrates its greatest strengths early. The film opens in the middle of a Jackson Maine show, a foreshadowing of how the narrative will operate in time jumps and elisions. We see the stumbling artist pop pills, take a swig of some assumed poison, and become consumed by a crippling ringing as the camera tracks him on stage in front of thousands. The lighting, a consistent strength during the concert scenes in particular, highlights a tortured Cooper, who conveys a heavy emotional weight with his walk alone. Then there’s the voice; both Cooper and Gaga deliver in the vocal department, with Gaga in particular giving some truly emotional performances throughout the film. In fact, the two leads and their infectious chemistry are simultaneously the film’s most enjoyable elements. Gaga shines on screen and stage, while Cooper deftly delivers a painfully realistic performance of a man who simply cannot save himself from his own suffering. Maine is where the tragedy of the source material is most manifest, but that doesn’t mean Gaga wasn’t deserving of her Oscar; these are two truly powerful performances.
Hard cut to Maine exiting stage right, another cut to the parking lot, one more to him slamming the car door and a jump cut to him downing another bottle of whisky. While this early in the film the disorienting editing appears as an intentional depiction of Maine’s chaotic lifestyle, the remainder of the narrative works in these fragments; time jumps abound that results in a myriad of issues for the films pacing, believability, and ultimately, it’s thematic message.
Because Cooper decides that is exactly what this story isn’t about. Rather than focus on all of the ways the music industry has crippled a loving relationship and the lives of two talented individuals, Cooper’s iteration places its gaze on the stars...those being Gaga and himself. Some could use this as evidence in their hate case against Cooper as self-indulgent, but I see this more as a demonstration of the director’s humanity. Like in Maestro, Cooper ignores aspects of the source material to make room for the romance at the center of either story. He chooses people over plot, and as such, had me leaving a biopic where I didn’t know anything more about the man walking out as I did going in, just as I never believed in the relationship between Maine and Ally. Despite his positive intentions, Cooper’s style feels fit for a more impersonal story, perhaps one about an artist’s career to serve as a critique of the industry they find themselves trapped within instead of an intimate relationship. This is A Star is Born’s fatal flaw: a true dissonance between presentation and thematic intention.
A story about a loving couple would want to have a sense of reality and believability. Again, at first, A Star is Born does so wonderfully. An electric encounter between Maine and Ally comes after economic character introductions and before a truly magnetic set of sequences that undoubtedly sweeps audiences into the film’s grasp with its contagious momentum. Here, the quick pace works, but for the rest of the film, an editing style like this refutes a sense of time or place. Jumping indiscriminate amounts of time is a narrative structure that could potentially hamper intimacy, as one simply doesn’t see the small moments that make a relationship matter when a film has to juggle the development and downfall of two separate musical careers. While Cooper and Gaga always deliver with their performances to make their relationship investable, the rest of the film suffers from a consequential unreality in script and presentation. Suddenly, Ally is a three time Grammy nominated artist after a single montage, Maine’s career is in the pits, and I don’t know how many years could have potentially passed in that time. The relationship similarly exists in extremes, because the film simply doesn’t have the time or patience to address either side of the source material’s thematic concerns to the degree it hopes to. Ally is hopelessly dependent and Maine asks for her hand in marriage in a “shocking” act that read to me as the plot tapping its watch, eyeballing the characters with a judgmental, “move along” glare instead of a genuine development in their relationship. Narrative beats falter when realism is never ensured, and for how quickly both their relationship and careers develop, and how confusingly it is presented with an editing style that omits more than it reveals, there is never a sense of reality in Cooper’s attempt at a realistic love story.
Meaning, the film does sadly appear as style over substance. With its greatest strengths found in what is clearly visible on screen and heard from speakers, and all of my personal issues coming with its difficulty to develop thematic nuance as a result of its aesthetic aims, A Star is Born is the safest rendition of what could have been a powerful critique of a toxic music industry. While never failing at depicting an emotional love story or delivering some critique of the entertainment world (no matter how flat), A Star is Born never performs both roles to a satisfying degree, and as such, isn’t deserving of an encore.