A Star Is Dying, rather.

Rating: 6/10 (13 October 2018)

Was Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper great actors? YES.
Was the music fantastic? YES.
Could they both sign? Omg YES.
So what's not to like? Well mainly the script. The title being "A star is born" one might think that there would be fokus on Ally's/Gaga's storyline and development. Quite the contrary, the film is about Cooper's character and everything happening is just to allow his character development. Even in the scenes where Ally's present and he's not, there's neither any development of her as a character nor even any storyline explaining her actions. She is just reacting to him and it's so extremely annoying.
Admittedly, the movie does start off great. We get to know and understand so much about Jackson, but the choices behind Ally's actions are left completely unexplained and unexplored. And what about the extremely unbelievable makeover? Orange hair, crazy makeup.... Why are you trying to make me question everything? It feels like this movie is trying to pull all my strings/play with my feeling in a very non-subtle way.
When Jack opens a beer at Ally's SNL performance, after a few white weeks, my interpretation is that he's doing so in disappointment that she's doing it as a pop princess rather than "being true to herself and all the things she has to tell and which he's told her she needs to do yada yada". My movie company did not read the scene that way but agreed that it could well have been intended that way, and if intentional, really diminished (again) Ally's choices.
And to round this off. The ending. Seriously? Yeah sure it connected to what we got to know about his past at rehab but there were so many other ways they could have made it. The first thing that came to mind was: cut the manager scene. Have Jack planning to go to the concert, but take smt to calm the nerves cuz it's been a while.. And bam! An accidental car crash.
I also wish this movie would have explored the relationship between Ally and Jack as she's progressively becoming more famous and his star is dying. Is there any jealousy? How are the handling it?
Need to stop rambling now before I start questioning why I even give this a score 6. Buuut the acting and singing is amazing and I'd easily listen to the soundtrack over and over.