Review of A Star Is Born (2018) by Greg C — 06 Oct 2018

Getting all spoilery up in here. "Look, talent comes everywhere, but having something to say and a way to say it so that people listen to it, that's a whole other bag." So what does A Star Is Born have to say, really? If someone you love has a rising life trajectory and you were the poison that was blocking it, would you break if off in order for them to flourish? If you have to choose between a great love vs.

success, fame, and fortune, which would you hold on to? What if the other person made that decision for you? I am used to action movies and observing super closely for thing to happen in a blink. None of that is taxed here.

I was waiting for the longest time for some conflict to arise to give us something that needed to be resolved. Gaga as the ingénue continues to be involved with an obvious alcoholic (Bradley Cooper's Jackson Mane) and then she marries him.

Cooper is pitch perfect in portraying the cycles of addiction with its moments of sobriety and the subsequent retreats to the bottle. I had issues with the pace, given its relatively mundane and obvious story arc.

Cooper's character mumbles, stumbles, and takes exaggeratedly long times to respond to the simplest questions, even when sober. Perhaps he needed a more stern director. A Star is Born is directed and co-written by Bradley Cooper.

Part of the running time is indulgent musical numbers of course, as the story is the relationship of two musical artists. I just wasn't feeling the story flow here past the first third of the movie.

The performances of Gaga and the supporting characters is fine. Noteworthy are the fine small parts by Dave Chappell and Andrew Dice Clay. Ultimately this felt like a long meh love story whose ending left me feeling still a bit unresolved as if the writing team didn't know what they wanted to say.