Film Review: A Star Is Born Is Romantic And Confronting
More than any previous reboot of this classic tale, A Star Is Born (2018) confronts the gut-punch you feel when you give your heart to an addict. It is hard to even say that your heart might lose its competition, for the love of your husband, with a bottle of pills and gin. Yet, Bradley Cooper’s Jack and Lady Gaga’s Ally are the rawest, on screen love story about addiction.
Bradley Cooper excels in A Star Is Born. It is his best performance to date, and the one where we most see him transform into a protagonist. Cooper poignantly carries his body and the heaviness of his voice with the exact same tiredness of an addict. Moreover, the fact that he directed this masterful film is impressive. For being his first time, A Star Is Born hits Oscar levels in terms of cinematic choices and performances. The close-ups of Ally’s face as she falls for Cooper’s Jack, and the clean, straight shots of him tumbling over, peeing himself, and slurring his words are contrastingly impactful. Why? Because they beautifully show that addicts are not devoid of love or their deserving of it, but loving them, certainly, makes us question whether we are.
Cooper plays Jack as a caring, charming guy that, plainly, CANNOT get his s**t together. Frankly, he never did. Though he had a rough upbringing, as his sullen brother, (Sam Elliott As Bobby) tells him, he has never been easy. For all his charisma and generosity, the darkness of Jack truly challenges his light and Ally. For those in doubt, Lady Gaga IS an actress, and I never thought otherwise. In fact, her entire career is proof that she can form a character, but Ally is her greatest, most tragic creation. From the beginning, it is set that Jack is long-time addict of drugs and alcohol, and, even on their first date, he is absolutely wasted. Yet, Ally is a symbol of how can become addicted to saving someone, and making them see how great they are even if it causes blindness to how better we need to be to ourselves.
Gaga plays Ally like a spitfire; who can get as mean or meaner than Cooper’s Jack. I was, actually, shocked by her character’s strength and her pushback, which no other “version” of this character has had to such as degree. She knows what she wants, even if she is not always clear about who she is, which, again, makes her a contrast to Jack. He feels faded; clutching to ideas of himself that the music industry is fading out, as well. Their love for music truly bonds them as creatives and admirers for the other, and is a constant reminder that a Star Is Born is 100% a concert film. If this film proves to people that Gaga can act, then it will prove to them that Bradley can sing, as well. I would DEFINITELY buy a ticket for Bradley Cooper’s Country Music Tour (lol!). Still, the division between Jack and Ally is emblematic to how our self-image always affects our public one.
In this “A Star Is Born” version, Cooper, intelligently, nuances the doomed romance between the protagonists to go beyond jealousy of fame into a fear of being voiceless. Jack is not solely envious of Ally because his career and health is fading. Instead, he is also anxious that her voice is being taken from her by the industry. As she goes through the “pop machine,” and loses the grounded nature of her stage presence and sound, he worries that he is losing his wife. In that dynamic lies the problem: was she his wife or his muse? Did he use her to feel hope for normalcy or to feel love? While, for Jack, everyone is talented, only a few have a “voice” powerful enough to make others want to silence theirs to listen, i.e. Ally. Yet, as the industry stops listening to him, he does not have the strength to listen to anyone that loves him.
Perhaps, the greatest difference between someone whom is sober and someone whom is an addict, is that one is growing and one is stuck. Ally grows throughout the film, not just in fame, but as a person willing to discover and push the boundaries of her spirit/art. Unfortunately, Cooper’s Jack is more focused on pushing his alcohol levels. Still, I do not say this comparison facetiously. If anything, A Star Is Born brings a realness and humility to this “glamorous,” legendary tale that it never had before. This is as much a story of a woman who fell for an addict as it is about a woman who becomes a star. A Star Is Born Comes Out In Theaters On October 5.
