A Star is Born is as much about the fall of one star, as it is the rise of another. Bradley Cooper, who’s also the director of this film, plays Jackson Maine, a rugged country rock star, who when not pouring his heart out on stage, drowns himself in alcohol and self-pity. He’s a drunk and drug addict so far gone that the strong stench of his whiskey breath seeps out of the screen. You can smell it! In a later scene, you see him backstage, pants down, getting an injection to his buttocks by one of his crew members right before he goes up to perform. In another scene, you see him taking shots in between songs. I found myself sighing quite a number of times throughout the film. The man is a mess, but there’s also a brokenness and helplessness about Jack that demands our sympathy. Bradley Cooper (the actor) is phenomenal.
We root for Jack (“that’s the thing about being famous… people start calling you by your full name”) because underneath all the alcohol and bullshit is a good man and an individual so in tune with his music that you wonder why he isn’t happy with his life. What void is he desperately trying but unable to fill? Is it because of the Tinnitus he’s suffering from? But why then does he not heed his brother’s (Sam Elliot, delivering a performance worthy of a Best Supporting Actor Academy Award nomination) advice and use a specially made hearing aid? Is it ego? Is it denial? Or is he drowning in alcohol because his good for nothing father made him his drinking buddy since he was a kid? The beauty of Bradley Cooper’s writing is that we don’t get any cut and dry answers to these questions. How many of us actually know exactly why our friends who have depression have depression?
One day, as Jack is getting his fix at a bar, he sees an obscure singer (who in a previous scene we see taking out the trash at her day job at a restaurant) perform her heart out. Her name is Ally (played by Lady Gaga, who brings this character to life with such charm and gravitas. She has a unique presence about her. The kind that when you first see her, you don’t immediately think “pretty!” but by the end of the film fills the screen in such a manner that she’s the most beautiful woman in the world). Her voice breathes life into his soul. His eyes twinkle. He sees something in her that is raw, that is pure, that is unbutchered by the glitz and glamour of Hollywood and through her, he falls all in love with the art form again. He asks her out for a drink (in which he downs a couple more shots before she even has a sip). Later they sit by the roadside and connect through their passion for music.
They fall in love. Yes, A Star is Born is a love story and a damn good one at that, but it’s also so much more. What Bradley Cooper has done here as a first-time writer-director, is give us a film that watches pretty well itself. He observes the details of two individuals who are ruthlessly in love with each other as they are with their passion. The irony of it all is that we see one individual, who as he finally begins to rediscover himself at the tail end of his career, continues to spiral out of control; and another individual who as she starts to ascend in the music industry and make her mark, begins to lose herself.
Cooper’s performance is heartbreaking. There’s a lot of sadness in his eyes, pain in his voice — with every shot of alcohol he takes, you feel a man crying out for help. You watch and you think to yourself, please come out of it! Please… you can do it! But deep down you know he’s not going to. I cried for him and with him but this is a man who has given up on himself a long time ago, though, during the few scenes where he’s not drenched in booze and his soul springs to life, it warmed my heart.
Lady Gaga too, is absolutely magnetic, embodying a character who experiences so many highs and lows in a short span of time. The logical side of me wanted to scream at her and tell her to ditch the drunk and move on with her life because of his flaws. But here you see a woman so deeply in love with her man despite his flaws (who loves her just as deeply) that you understand why she keeps going back to him. But it’s not just him she’s struggling with, it’s also her craft and what that means to her. Her manager takes her raw talent and repackages it, throwing in a bunch of backup dancers and some lyrics about booty. She receives the highest possible accolade a new artist can get… but is it worth it? Perhaps for a girl who many moons ago was waiting tables and taking out the trash, it is. But for an audience member who watched her journey, this film is an ugly reminder of why I’ve never been a fan of pop music, outside of Michael Jackson (and perhaps Beyonce). A star is born, but an artist dies.
Cooper (the director) is absolutely fantastic at capturing the nuances in his characters (consider the way Jack strums the guitar while he’s on stage, enraptured by the music and the energy of the crowd — there’s not a lick of insincerity) and the moments they spend together. There isn’t a single beat in the film that doesn’t feel organic, not a single tear shed that feels unearned. The scenes Ally and Jack share, especially the quiet ones feel so authentic that you stop seeing them as actors and start seeing them as a real-life couple. The chemistry on display is almost akin to what we get from Gosling and Williams in Blue Valentine.
At times, the pacing of the film feels uneven and the editing, a little choppy. The scene where Jack and Ally get engaged comes to mind. It happens so quickly and nonchalantly that I was left feeling a little confused. There are chunks throughout the film that play out that way, like a blur. Scenes fade in and out and you don’t get a proper sense of how much time has passed. But I can also argue that we’re dealing with two drunks here — one of alcohol and the other of newfound fame. And perhaps when you’re them, life sort of moves in flashes and everything is a blur.
Remember the time when Bradley Cooper was just known by many as the ‘funny guy from Hangover’? (Not that there’s anything wrong with being the funny guy from Hangover — it’s a gut buster of a comedy). Or the time before that, when he was just some dude who appeared in random episodes of Nip/Tuck? Or what about the time when he was just the guy in Case 39 (I’m kidding. Nobody remembers Case 39 or even watched it for that matter. I just thumbed through his IMDb profile in search of a horribly rated film).
But Bradley Cooper is one of those people, isn’t he? Like Ben Affleck. It’s like they just woke up one day and went “Fuck it! From this minute forth, I’m gonna be a critically acclaimed artist,” and then went about doing exactly that. My point is, over the past six years or so Bradley Cooper went from being “eh isn’t he that guy from…” to OSCAR NOMINATED HOT SHIT BRADLEY COOPER. And with A Star is Born, he announces himself to the world as a brilliant writer-director, one who is potentially destined for greatness.
