Gaga for Gaga?

Rating: 6/10 (7 November 2018)

I suppose if you live on the moon or are one of those people who's never seen a movie from a previous decade, "A Star Is Born" might seem like something special. But for the rest of us, who've had at least three chances to experience this story in the past, the newest version is a pedestrian retread.
I'm not sure what exactly I was expecting, except that it was something more than I got given the ravenous audience response to this movie. Everyone is going gaga for Gaga, the Lady that is, and she's pretty good, but I think the praise she's getting is driven more by surprise that she might actually be able to act and less by her actual performance. Cooper is decent too, and they both do have tremendous chemistry, I'll grant them that. The first half hour or so of the film, and especially the scene where Cooper and Gaga perform together for the first time, does promise to be special, and if the whole movie had been like that I could understand the film's reception. But midway through the movie it settles into a dull routine, and the ending, which clearly thought it was going to move me to tears, made me feel nothing at all.
In a culture clamoring for more stories about women, and with a female personality as out of the box as lady Gaga to work with, I don't know why this movie decided to be about a white man and his -- let's face it -- not very interesting demons. Ok, so I know why -- Bradley Cooper starred and directed. But how much more interesting the film would have been, and what a greater departure from its previous incarnations, if it had instead been about Gaga's character and her own struggles with stardom. But no -- her working class broad makes the leap to international sensation seemingly without a hitch, and any nuance her character might have had, like some initial worries about losing herself and being true to her art, are quickly ditched by the screenplay so that we can instead focus on Cooper's moping. What we're left with is a dude who's sad because his best years are behind him and a lady who's sad because's he's mean to her in a bathroom once and embarrasses her at the Grammys. Well, let her Grammy be her consolation, and remind me why I'm supposed to care about any of this.
Grade: C+