(The following review contains spoilers for "A Star is Born"...but if you've seen the other adaptations, it follows pretty much "every beat" of the same story so you probably know what's coming).
I've underestimated the crap out of this movie. For starters, I have no idea why this film is getting remade for a THIRD TIME, proof that Hollywood has lost any type of originality they once had. However, I was proven wrong. It was pretty darn good.
Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) is a rock singer dealing with alcohol addiction and substance abuse. When he goes to a drag bar and sees a woman named Ally (Lady Gaga) sing Édith Piaf's La vie en rose, he falls in love instantly with Ally and her singing voice. After spending the night together, Maine invites Ally on tour. While she refuses at the beginning, she quits her job, frustrated and decides to go on tour with Jackson. When she arrives, she is pressured to sing her song "Shallow", and she becomes a viral sensation on Youtube. While Ally's career soars, Jackson's self-destructive path reaches a downward spiral that feels like it's never going to recover...Ally marries Jackson, but his behavior worsens, until he decides to get treated for his addictions to become a better man.
There is a lot to like in A Star is Born, though the movie isn't as "perfect" or "near-perfect" as many critics make it out to be. The biggest issue I had with the movie was Sam Elliott's character. His performance was absolutely incredible, and he deserves a best supporting actor WIN at the Academy Awards, but I honestly think the relationship between him and Jackson would've worked better if he was his father. While every scene that he's in is riveting, compelling and strucks an emotional core in your heart, being Jackson's "older" half-brother just doesn't work as well as straight-up being his father. Imagine the kind of moralizing dialogue we could get with Sam Elliott if he was his father, we would get a subplot that could've deepened Jackson's self-destructive nature and how his father is ashamed of himself and prays for the safety of Ally. I'm thinking of this and it would've honestly made his character so much more important than the way they completely shoehorned a "half-brother". I honestly didn't get that part, and imagine what would've happened if he was his father (talking to the people that saw the film). The movie also frequently use the word "fuck" because "RATED R". They keep saying "FUCK, FUCKIN" all the time that the word ultimately loses meaning and actually make some of the lines unintentionally hilarious. It's not because The Wolf of Wall Street used f-bombs in an excessive, but funny way that you don't mind the excessive use. A Star is Born has no justifiable reason to use f-bombs, even though Patrick Star calls them "sentence enhancers", it makes some sentences lose all of their credibility. Take "If you don't dig deep in your fuckin' soul, you won't have legs"...remove the f-bomb: "If you don't dig deep in your soul, you won't have legs". The line, without the f-bomb, works better and the meaning it tried to convey is felt even more when you remove the swear.
Aside from the film's few flaws, A Star is Born is a remarkable achievement in camerawork with Matthew Libatique's subjective cinematography, putting you right in the middle of the stage, following Jackson Maine's insane guitar riffs and the beat of the songs. The film's cinematography deserves the Academy Award for Best Cinematography, though I don't know if Libatique's arrest will hurt his chances for an Oscar (even though he was released without being charged).
The movie opens with Maine, in front of a large crowd, singing his song, Black Eyes. As soon as the song starts, the film grabs you and never lets you go. The song is fantastic and Bradley Cooper electrifies the stage as he riffs his guitar like a madman and sings to his heart's content. Cooper absolutely deserves an Oscar nomination and Jackson Maine, seeing him destroy himself while Ally rises to stardom is incredibly soul-crushing. You can tell Jackson wants to be happy with Ally, but cannot overcome his demons, even when he goes to rehab. When he comes back home, he realizes that he is going to be a nuisance for Ally, when her manager, Rez (Rafi Gavron), tells him that he is the one that is holding Ally back and, because of him, she won't be able to grow as a signer and her career will ultimately die. Because of this, he hangs himself, thinking of Ally and her career. He obviously didn't need to resort to suicide, but the scene is done so elegantly that you, the audience member, will ultimately cry when Maine takes off his "cowboy hat" and puts it on the table, as a sign that "the singer has left the building". It's a powerful moment and, honestly, one of the most emotionally draining scenes of 2018. There's talk of Lady Gaga grabbing an Oscar for her performance as Ally Maine, I'd see it, but her performance didn't hit me as hard as Viola Davis in Widows. When Gaga sings "Shallow" for the first time on stage, the scene hit me hard and I started crying even more than Jackson's death scene. The sequence was so powerful to see and hear in IMAX, the only way to properly experience every note of the fillm, the way the director intended.
I've said a lot about the film, because it struck me emotionally, the same way Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again (unexpectedly) did. While I cannot overshadow A Star is Born's unoriginality as a remake and a typical, paint-by-numbers "rise to stardom" movie, it's still a well-made film that is likely to snag a few awards coming Oscar season. If you get a chance to see it in IMAX, make sure to stay after the credits for a 10-minute making-of documentary called "The Road to Stardom" that talks about Cooper's creative vision and is incredibly interesting to hear.
4/5
No comments:
Post a Comment