When I first saw the trailer for A Star is Born back in July, I immediately had no interest in ever seeing it. Sure, I love Bradley Cooper and it’s cool to see him both star in and direct a movie, but the entire premise seemed like a giant cliche: Successful Country Musician meets and falls in love with Struggling Singer and her dreams come true. I mean come on, the title of the movie summarizes the entire plot. Everything about the movie looked derivative and predictable.

But then in September, reviews for A Star is Born started rolling out and I was shocked.  Critics were showering the movie with praise, and it had landed an 88 on Metacritic and a 90% on Rotten Tomatoes. Any dramatic fall movie with those kinds of reviews is a guaranteed Oscar contender, so I figured I’d have to go see it.

Now I still had my reservations, because going into A Star is Born I was vaguely reminded of last year’s Best Picture winner, The Shape of Water. Both movies checked similar boxes: 1) They had trailers that made the film look predictable and unoriginal, and 2) The reviews were overwhelmingly positive. And sure enough, when I eventually saw The Shape of Water, I was disappointed. The acting was very good, but the story played out exactly as expected, leaving me wondering why everyone loved it so much (personally I think The Shape of Water was one of the weakest of the nominees last year, and the worst Best Picture winner since 2005’s Crash).

 

 

But, like most movies, I went into A Star is Born trying to keep an open mind and I ended up walking away genuinely impressed. It is a very good movie, just not an amazing one.

First off, I should mention this- it was predictable. It may not have played out exactly like I expected from watching the trailer, but after the first twenty minutes or so I could clearly see where the film was going. But honestly, predictability wasn’t that large of an issue because unlike Shape of Water,  A Star is Born has a lot more too it that you couldn’t pick up from the trailer.

What makes A Star is Born so special is the acting and the directing. This is Bradley Coopers first time directing, and not for one second does it feel that way. The story walks a thin line between larger-than-life and intimacy, and the way Cooper balances that emotion is incredible. He focuses so tightly on his character Jack, and Lady Gaga’s character Ally as they struggle through life and as their paths slowly intertwine. He excels at capturing the raw emotion of each scene in a way that draws you into the moment, whether it’s one of their on-stage performances or a quieter scene between Jack and his brother. It’s one of those rare films where you just have to see it to understand what experiencing it is like because the plot summary alone clearly does not do it justice.

And then there is the acting. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga absolutely nail their respective roles, and I think they’re both frontrunners for the Oscars. Bradley Cooper’s character is a drug-addicted drunk, who simultaneously struggles with his childhood and his fame. There’s a lot of moving parts to the character, and Cooper handles him with such precision as he toes the line between depressing and sympathetic, while always acting somewhat intoxicated.

Lady Gaga already proved she was a quality actress when she won a Golden Globe for American Horror Story. I have not seen that show, but I’m sure it was a very Gaga-esque, eccentric performance which would not be outside of her wheelhouse. Her role as Ally, however, is something completely new for her. Her character is strong yet vulnerable, and without getting into spoilers, she expertly portrays someone who becomes famous almost overnight and maneuvers through the consequences that may come with it. Also, her voice is incredible.

Also, I want to quickly mention Sam Elliot, who plays Bradley Cooper’s brother. Elliot has been acting for a very long time, and I’ve seen him in at least a dozen things from Western films, to Parks and Rec, to Coen Brother films. But this is the first movie where I feel like he’s had the chance to shine, and while it’s a smaller role he kills it as he plays a man trying to care for his degenerate alcoholic brother.

 

 

But the movie is not without its issues. I previously mentioned the predictable plot, but the timeline and the message of the movie are also muddled. There is never an overall sense of how much time has passed in their relationship, which, based on events that happen in the movie, would appear to be essential. For instance, there is a performance scene on the SNL season finale which is immediately followed by a scene about the Grammy announcements. Considering that SNL ends in May, and the Grammys are announced in December, are we supposed to believe that seven months have passed in between two scenes? The point is, the movie could span a couple months or half a decade and there’s no indication in the film for which it is.

But my biggest issue is the lack of a message. I don’t need every film to have a moral to its story, but this isn’t Mission: Impossible, it’s a dramatic film and I left the theater with no real takeaway. A somewhat similar film, La La Land revolved around this theme of making sacrifices to pursue your dreams, which worked seamlessly with the plot. There is none of that in A Star is Born. Again, I’ll avoid spoilers, but the film ends in a way that demands you to think but gives you nothing to think about. Besides the surface-level themes of addiction and fame, there is no deeper message to make this movie hit as hard as it should. There is even a point where the film brushes with the idea of selling out, but it never ends up going anywhere.

A Star is Born is one of the strongest films of 2018 so far, boasting some of the best acting and directing I’ve seen since last years’ Three Billboards Outisde Ebbing, Missouri. While the lack of themes and straightforward plot can make the film less strong than it should be, A Star is Born remains one of the most powerful rags-to-riches stories I’ve ever seen.

8/10

 

© Hank Michels, 2018