Jackson Maine is a Pitiful Creature

Rating: Null/10 (20 February 2019)

Of the four film versions of "A Star is Born," this Cooper-Gaga version is the bottom feeder. One notch above is the Streisand-Kristofferson film at #3. The #2 version is the March-Gaynor black-and-white film. And the sublime Judy Garland version wins the sweepstakes at #1. For this new version, problems abound in the acting, directing, and music.
The film was not successful in the rise-and-fall structure built around the two singers. While Miss Gaga was successful in portraying the meteoric rise to stardom of Ally, the character of Jackson Maine essentially started at rock bottom and fell into greater depravity as the film progressed. This was a pitiful creature with no backbone, and his treatment of Ally was meaner than the Norman Maine in the three other film versions. In those films, the Norman Maine character is at least likeable, and the audience roots for him to overcome his alcoholism. In Bradley Cooper's interpretation of Maine, he never seemed to want to resolve his troubled relationship with his father. In his rehab treatment, he even fails to keep his journal and bring it to the support group.
In the film's direction, Cooper's work was also substandard. The pacing of the film was uneven with too many slow stretches. There were occasional lapses in dialogue overlap and timing in delivery of lines. The camera work included too many close-ups and awkward compositional choices, often appearing like a made-for-television project, as opposed to a big-budget feature film.
Above all, for a film musical, the score was not exciting and the songs tended to blend together in a single, limited musical style. Cooper was not convincing as a famous country-and-western star, and the music all too predictable. In the Judy Garland version, the songs evolved organically out of character interactions, such as delightful improvised number at home where Garland's character Vicky Lester sings to Norman about her day at the studio, using household objects as props for her routine. Even the Streisand-Kristofferson film had a decent score.
All in all, this fourth version of "A Star is Born" was a major disappointment. The sluggish pace, lackluster performances, and amateurish sound track all added up to a major flop. The Judy Garland version, as brilliantly directed by George Cukor, stands tall as one of the great film musicals ever produced.