Movie Review: A Star Is Born (2018)
A Star is Born (1937) starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March. A Star Is Born (1954) starring Judy Garland and James Mason. A Star Is Born (1976) starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson. A Star Is Born (2018) starring Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper. Shit…I’ve almost filled up an entire paragraph and all I did was list the same movie 4 times with different casts. 17 years between the first and second production. 22 years between the second and third. And, now, 42 years between the third and the fourth. The good news is…I’ll be dead before number 5 pops up.
More good news? It’s a great film.
I’ve been looking forward to hearing the soundtrack for quite some time now. I like Gaga and I assumed the songs would be good, if not great. I was a bit ambivalent about the actual film, mostly because of the aformentioned previous imcarnations, all of which tell the exact same story! Up and coming perfomer (singer, actor, ventriloquist-it doesn’t matter) meets legendary star. The up and comer is always a woman, and the legend is always a man. Sparks fly, he helps her get into whatever industry she wants to excel at-and she does! Meanwhile, he drinks and drinks and becomes less and less relevant as her star shines brighter and brighter. Her people don’t like him because he’s becoming a joke of his former self, they tell him, tragedy occurs, blah blah blah. I won’t mention what the tragedy is, although I’m kinda surprised people don’t know the story. My partner Tommy came home from work angry that one of his clients blabbed the ending.
“Can you believe it?” he screamed, “She just blurted it out. I’ve been making a point about not reading anything about this film, and she blows it for me!”
I stared at him in confused disbelief.
“Seriously…I’m pissed. But don’t worry, I won’t ruin it for you, too.”
I asked him, “You mean you DIDN’T know the ending? It’s kind of a known thing…she probably assumed you had some knowledge of popular culture.”
“I didn’t. And go fuck yourself.”
Soooo…some people don’t know the story, so I won’t spill the spoilers.
The trick to remaking a remake of another remake remaking a remake is making it relevant (alliteration is fun!). And interesting. Since a lot of us already know the story, we want to watch the drama unfold with maybe a new spin on the story…something, anything to keep us watching.
Bradley Cooper does just that. I feel the need to point out that he co-wrote, produced, directed, AND starred in the film. It’s his first time behind the camera and, to be honest, he has a new career ahead of him. I really like him as an actor-but I think I might like him better has a director. He’s made some incredibly smart choices here. The smartest of which was his casting-everyone is perfect in their roles-Lady Gaga as Ally, Sam Elliot as his manager/brother, Dave Chappelle as his childhood friend. Even, and I can’t believe I’m saying this because I can’t stand the man, Andrew Dice Clay as Ally’s father (who still has dreams of being a Frank Sinatra-esque crooner). None of the characters are two dimensional or cliches, and that’s thanks to the writing…and the directing.
The movie opens with Cooper’s character, Jackson Maine, finishing a huge concert to thunderous applause. All of the singing is done live, no dubbing here, and that really brings you into the music. I know dubbing is the standard, but when a singer is lip synching, even to their own music, there is a disconnect in the art. It just doesn’t feel true. It’s all true here. After the concert, Jackson just wants to get drunk, but his bottle is empty. He makes his driver pull over at a bar, and he gets out and goes in. It’s a gay bar. There is a guy at the door, Ramon (played by Anthony Ramos), who just happens to be Ally’s best friend. He recognizes Jackson, is surprised, but then tries to tell him that this isn’t his kind of bar and maybe he shouldn’t go in.
Jackson just wants to know if they serve alcohol. They do? Then it’s his kind of bar…and he means it! I think that for most writers and directors in Hollywood, they would have played this scene as a funny, fish out of water, look at the uncomfortable straight man, ha ha, he’s afraid of gay people cliche. Nope, not Cooper, his Jackson Maine really doesn’t care, and he has fun watching the drag queens (he even signs a pair of (fake) tits!). Ally performs live (La Vie en Rose) and he is smitten (who wouldn’t be, she is amazing). She is overwhelmed that this legend is taken with her, and they fall in love.
Lady Gaga is fantastic here. She is ridiculously talented, but also shy, scared, and vulnerable. It’s an amazing performance. The two of them have incredible chemistry and you believe they are in love. Many of the scenes in the film follow the same non-cliche pattern that the gay bar scene does. Jackson isn’t a violent, hateful misogynist, Ally isn’t a weak little girl pining for her man. We see a smart, funny, talented person with deeply rooted troubles who drinks too much, pops pills, smokes whatever in order to either feel something, or not to feel something. There is a scene where he is in rehab, one of the biggest stars in the world, tough and full of swagger, and he can’t make eye contact with anyone there when he says, “My name is Jack, and I’m an alcoholic…and a drug addict.” He doesn’t even look up from the floor. He knows he has trouble, and he knows he has weakness, and he hates it.
I just had to take a quick break from writing this review, my dogs needed to go outside. I let them out and sat at the kitchen table while they ran and played. Just below the window, I noticed a leaf. It was a beautiful, vibrant red, with bright yellow veins running through it-just perfect. When I went to let them back in, I went out to pick up the leaf. There it was, almost glowing in it’s autumnal glory, I bent down to get it, and that’s when I noticed three black spots on the leaves. The trees in our neighborhood have been dealing with a fungus that affects the leaves, it’s not deadly, just a cosmetic issue, and it must have finally found it’s way into our yard. It reminded me of this film. From a distance, we see beautiful people, with beautiful lives, and we never see the spots, the scars. But that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
It’s not a perfect film, few ever are. My partner, Tommy, and our friend Barb both had some trouble understanding Cooper and Sam Elliot’s deep, gurgling, growlish delivery (I had to translate for him multiple times), and I would have liked to have seen the camera pull back from some of the close ups just to give us a different perspective of the scenes and the characters. At one point, Jackson Maine gives his dog an incredibly large steak. I was upset. He should have cut the steak up for him, I was afraid the dog would choke. But I’m quibbling.
I would be remiss if I didn’t mention D.J. “Shangela” Pierce as the drag bar emcee/manager and Willam Belli as Emerald (she’s the one who gets her boobs signed!). They both stand out and are unforgettable…and Shangela is a freaking star! Hollywood needs to figure out what to do with these two…maybe an HBO series about a drag bar? Hmmmm….I’ll have to get started on that pilot.
Go see the movie, then go buy the soundtrack…because you will want to.
P.S. I just heard a story about the dozens of a-list celebrities who have been attached to some version of some remake of this film. One of them was Will Smith, who wanted Jennifer Lopez to co-star…only he wanted to flip it and make J. Lo the drunk, fading star and himself as the brilliant new comer who over shadows her. Would anyone actually have believed that, A) Will Smith could outshine Jennifer Lopez or that, B) Jennifer Lopez would become irrelevant? That’s probably why it didn’t get made…but, Hollywood, if you DO remake this again, swapping genders might be interesting…with the right cast!
P.S.S. Hollywood….you really DON’T need to remake this movie again…try to come up with a new story, ok?