A STAR IS BORN (2018) - More than just a chick flick

A Star is Born is a romantic musical drama directed by Bradley Cooper and starring himself, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliot, Andrew Dice Clay, and Rafi Gavron. The movie, the fourth iteration of this story on the big screen, centers on the relationship between a rock-country musician who is nearing the end of his career due to his recklessness and deep alcoholism. He happens to meet a young waitress with a beautiful voice who aspires to become a singer, and the two begin a relationship where he tries to push her to "tell the world what she has to say" while also trying to overcome his personal struggles.

This movie absolutely took me by surprise. Judging from the trailer, I expected this movie to be a fairly generic romance movie/chick flick about an established and jaded musician who pushes the young and naive girl to chase after her dreams, and in doing so remembers his own love for music. I expected a cheesy love story with twists and turns, ups and downs, ending with either a typical happy ending or some superficial tragedy that separates the two.

This was not at all what this movie turned out to be.

Bradley Cooper definitely has a future in directing, since this movie--his directorial debut--was very well constructed with a surprisingly deeper and more emotionally-gripping story than I think anyone was expecting. I won't mention any details for fear of spoilers, but this movie truly does dive into the psyche of Cooper's character, fleshing him out for us to see just how tragic a character he is (and I do mean "tragic" in the Greek sense). I don't really remember the last time I felt so emotionally involved in the personal triumphs and failures of a movie character in the theater as I was for Cooper's character.

Bradley Cooper really is an interesting guy. Most people would think of him as the guy from the Hangover series or the voice of Rocket Raccoon, and yet whenever he goes for some more subtle and nuanced roles he always performs amazingly. If anything, this role could be the one that shows more audiences just how wide his scope of acting really is.

And speaking of Bradley Cooper's talent, this is also his debut as a guitarist and a singer, both skills he had to train for months in preparation for this movie. Which is wholly impressive, even without mentioning the fact that, as per Lady Gaga's insistence, all the songs were performed live and not in a studio, so that was actually Bradley Cooper performing in front of a real crowd at a real concert.

Lady Gaga likewise knocks it out of the ballpark with her debut on the big screen. The lady already has one of the most beautiful and powerful voices on the planet, but she really shows off her acting skills here in a role that is kind of perfect for her as a waitress who wants to become a singer and doesn't initially sing her own songs because of people's perceptions of her appearance. She appears as if she's been acting all her life and perfectly captures the essence of her character, to the point that sometimes I've forgotten that she and Cooper were actors on the screen. It began to feel that these were real people I was watching, which is much more praise than I can give for other singers who try to kickstart an acting career (sorry Rihanna).

The music in this movie is utterly fantastic, and will be joining La La Land and Frozen in the "Oh crap, guess this soundtrack will be on repeat for the next few months for me" club. I really do hope these songs become popular as songs and not just as movie soundtracks, because Lady Gaga singing power ballads is not-so-surprisingly very, very good. And yes, Lady Gaga, we all know that "I'll Never Love Again" is a very on-the-nose homage to/rip-off of Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You" but we don't care because it's still a great song.

As for complaints, really the only one I have is that the last twenty minutes or so does feel a tad aimless, and I was really wondering when and how the movie was going to end. Maybe that's not such a bad thing for others, but that's the point in the movie where I was really started to get slightly bored. Also the movie doesn't quite do a great job with explaining jumps in time. There is one montage that implies a leap forward in time, but we never really get an indication for how long it's been or what their relationship was like during that time. There is a mention of them having multiple fights, but I really didn't get that from their performances.

Also, Sam Elliot's voice is too low and I couldn't hear what he was saying sometimes, but that's a "me" problem :/

Final Verdict

A Star is Born is a very good movie that I would recommend to everyone (who's comfortable with lots of swearing and some nudity). As a musical, it's great. As a romance movie, it's well done. As a character drama, it's fantastic. Which is all a real surprise considering it's Bradley Cooper's first time directing, performing, and singing as well as Lady Gaga's first time acting in a movie. It starts out as a cheesy romance movie and becomes so much more as the movie progresses, ultimately finishing with an emotionally powerful ending that had the elderly couple beside me openly weeping. And I would say that's the mark of a well-made movie, wouldn't you?

Score: A-