A Star Is Born succeeds on the back of great musical scenes and performances

Rating: 7/10 (20 February 2019)

While I'm not sure it's a complete or well-rounded picture, it's easy to get lost in the numerous things it does very well. Cooper and Gaga are excellent as the leads and play off of each other well in terms of energy. Cooper is the heart of the movie, as it's really a character study masquerading as a musical romance, and he plays the role with subtlety and a great range of emotions. Gaga frankly stole the show for me, as her expressions and reactions to Cooper felt so real and gave us a baseline for their relationship. I didn't think her character was written well and wasn't given enough distinctive characteristics, but she adds significant and needed depth in her line delivery and high-energy performance. The script on the whole didn't impress me, seeming predictable and cliche at points and not having consistency in focuses throughout. It could've been a more coherent and emotionally devastating rise to the climax if it had been more intentional in how Jack's alcoholism affected his everyday life and the psychology and struggle behind the addiction, but instead it just felt like an undeveloped plot tool. I thought Cooper's direction was on the whole excellent, particularly in the musical scenes where his shot selection and lighting were phenomenal. The musical scenes didn't just pause the plot to play music, but were shot in a way that continued to develop it, and the songs themselves were very good. However, the scene where he proposes was completely jarring to me and felt ridiculously unrealistic. I found the movie to generally improve as it progresses, with the early scenes requiring serious leaps of faith in Jack latching onto this specific girl and the unexplained and immediate attachment they have (as with many movie romances, their relationship and why they're in love is never explained). I also found a few early scenes bordering on an uncomfortable power dynamic where Ally was a toy for him to feel alive and excited and he could pluck her from her life and have her love immediately. The realism and emotional attachment picked up as the movie went along, and the late conversations between them and final song both held serious emotional weight. It's a good, skillfully made movie with excellent headlining performances, but a few inconsistencies keep it from being a great one.