A Star is Born – A Multiple Personality Movie Review

A Star is Born is a musical drama about a famous rock star that discovers a talented singer that he falls in love with. Her career skyrockets and his goes down in flames. The film is a remake of a remake of a remake: remake-ception. It’s closest to the 1976 version starring Barbara Streisand and Kris Kirstofferson.

This is the directorial debut of Bradley Cooper, who also stars as the lead Jackson Maine. He discovers Ally, played by Lady Gaga, singing at a drag bar, and immediately falls in love. He brings her out on stage at his next show and they sing a duet together. From there, her career blasts off.

Enough cannot be said about Bradley Cooper’s direction and performance. Behind the camera, he tells a story that feels as big as its rock star subject, but retains a gritty, indie feel. And on camera, it’s the best performance of his career.

Lady Gaga was already amazing, whether she’s singing and dancing or scaring the crap out of audiences in American Horror Story, and she does a good job here, but it won’t blow audiences away.

After Ally’s career takes off, her style changes direction and Jackson feels as if she is losing her soul. This mixed with his alcoholism causes their relationship to crash. As Jackson’s alcoholism becomes more severe, every scene becomes, ‘what will he do next?” The sequence at the Grammy’s will make audiences skin crawl. However, through the ups and downs it’s shown that Jackson and Ally really love each other, which makes the movie a powerful love story.

Whose Review gives A Star is Born the overall rating of… Worth Seeing. There are a lot of great things to say about this film, but there are also some flaws that bring down its lasting impact. With a little more focus on writing the story and not on writing the songs, it would be an instant classic like its predecessors. Having said that… it’s still worth seeing in theaters to get the big screen and surround sound quality.

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