Review of A Star Is Born (2018) by K Nife C — 04 Oct 2018

Literally no one has ever said that they like how Lady Gaga sounds but they don't like how she looks - except for Lady Gaga in this movie. If you don't like her Madonna by way of Elton John by way of Marilyn Manson schtick, her looks would be inconsequential, and if you are on that bandwagon, you certainly wouldn't question her glamorous ability to "SLAYYY" amidst your adulations of "YASS KWEEEN!" A Roman nose is hardly exemplary of a lack of beauty, so that tanked my disbelief before the trailer ended. For those who have drank the kool-aid and would take her at her word, Gaga has easily managed to calcify her place amongst gay icons Judy Garland and Barbara Streisand by starring in yet another remake of A Star is Born while her costar and director Bradley Cooper manages to avoid voicing a CG raccoon, an esteemed accomplishment in its own right.

As Gaga's romantic origins story told in prestige picture format, A Star is Born succeeds, but as a breakout directorial debut to signal Bradley Cooper as a triple threat and jump-start his country rock musical career the film leaves much to (not) be desired. Much of that failure stems from technical shortcomings. As a guitarist, I was surprised at his rudimentary playing technique exacerbated by the the sound designer's insistence to push his noodling way past the front of the mix. Some of his soloing brought to mind the flub noises from a rigorous bout of Guitar Hero on medium difficulty.

Then the editing of the film was surprisingly bad, starting off at a strong pace then punishingly slow by the mid point. At about the two hour mark, Sam Elliott's character asks "Where the f*** are we going?" to which I replied "hopefully, the end". There were some great shots with good reasons to meditate on a scene, but the quality control was terribly haphazard. For instance, the scene where Jackson Maine (Cooper) is playing with his puppy in the back yard looked more epic than Ally's (Gaga) final song, an emotional climax in an opera house. J.J. Abrams looked to be the second unit director on half the film as there were enough lens flares in this to put more kids in the hospital than Pikachu, and Zach Snyder must have been consulted on the nauseating shakey-cam during quiet scenes of dialogue.

As a romance, the film is effective enough, but as a musical film there were quite a few things that irked me aside from the fact that I don't really care for modern pop stylings. The soundtrack seems to be made for people who, when pressed to say what they listen to, reply "I'll listen to anything - country, rock, hip-hop, pop, whatever." The songs never fit into any sort of overarching genre, veering from Kenny Wayne Shepherd-lite to a tepid vapor wave in near comical fashion. This reflects more broadly on the homogenization of the music industry, but it also attests to the movie's intent to be marketable to the lowest common denominator.

After a deep heart to heart where Cooper tells Gaga she has to pull from the deepest part of her soul to be an effective performer, there's a smash cut to her gyrating in fishnets to a song about how good someone's ass looks in jeans. I would think it's satire if it were played for a laugh, but the irony seemed to be complete lost in the edit. All of the emotional comedowns that drag between the songs and even the tentpole track "Shallow" try so hard to lend this cliche ridden rise to fame a level of profundity that never feels earned.

Jackson's corn-fried advice to Ally about how to make it seems constantly negated by his poor decisions, privilege, and his demise as a character. While they're sitting in a bar populated primarily by cops, he says "Look around you. I bet every person in this room has talent. That doesn't matter. What matters is if you have a story that people want to hear and way to tell it." I imagine if they had any talent besides oppressing minorities or protecting rich people's property they wouldn't be cops, but that's beside the point. I think Ally's rise to fame has less to do with her "story" (a series of lamenting love songs about being in a relationship with an alcoholic) and more about the fact that she, by chance, performs a famous song she didn't write to an extremely influential man with tremendous resources in the entertainment industry who was sexually attracted to her and drunk. She's doubly lucky that it wasn't Harvey Weinstein.

However, the crux of why the film never truly jumps into the profound depths it aspires to is because...

*spoilers* if you haven't seen the earlier iterations of this film.

Jackson kills himself. Any ruminations in life, love, and success are kind of hard to take seriously when the character who seemingly has nothing but potential and resolve to turn his life around comes to be impossibly depressed and kills himself because of tinnitus and the possibility he might be a hindrance to his wife's career. The staunch realism and need to feel grounded all throughout the film is forsaken to maximize emotional potency. Just because an A&R guy (an occupation known for its pricks and leeches) says he's bad for business, the outlaw country man goes full emo. The degree of support, resources, and opportunities afforded to Jackson makes his decision seem trite and contrived to anyone who has actually struggled with alcoholism and depression, and any mote of wisdom he may have rambled off in the film loses its teeth retrospectively.

This might have been more cathartic if they had taken some time to really let his death sink in, and from what I've seen of the general audience's response, watching Gaga smash some framed posters has been effective enough for some. But the fact that they pretty much skip straight to a tribute concert where everyone idolizes him and (oh, look at Gaga's dress!) get to the weepy consummate part within about 10 minutes gives the suicide an air of romanticism. I know it's nothing new for modern pop to wallow in failure and lost love, but adding death to the mix makes for a really pessimistic conclusion, as if Jackson is the sacrificial lamb for Ally's career - a rock 'n' roll martyr. I'm sure others will read it differently, but it feels maudlin and manipulative in a time in American history where we don't need those kind of bad vibes. The silver lining to this dark cloud is that the movie is efficacious in demonstrating how stardom is nothing any reasonable person should aspire towards.