I don’t care for Bradley Cooper. So far in his career, it’s been impossible for me to see him as anything but a sleazeball. In the years since his breakout in those awful Hangover movies, he’s been trying to convince us that he’s a serious method actor with a lot on his mind. It never works. In the case of A Star is Born, he puts himself in the director’s chair, so we can see once and for all that he is a serious craftsman. Well, he’s not. While there are things to like about his film, there are too many negatives to overlook.
The biggest problem with Cooper’s remake (one of several, dating back to the original in 1937) is that the love story that drives it falls flat. It starts nicely with an understandable and sweet infatuation, but as the relationship progresses down the natural course, there’s never a tangible feeling of love or chemistry between the leads (Cooper and Lady Gaga). They hit the usual and perfunctory stages present in every romantic movie, but it all seems very shallow. To put it simply, after their initial meeting and fascination with each other, I don’t buy it. There’s no real indication given as to why she even falls for him in the first place (he’s basically a drunken weirdo from the get-go). The emotion is forced, which cheapens the entire film.
I may not like Cooper – and I don’t love him here – but he’s better than usual. His mumbling antics may get old (a weird mix of co-star Sam Elliot and Pearl Jam Singer Eddie Vedder), but at least I believe his act. He pulls off what he’s trying to accomplish. The ups and downs of his addiction are handled well, but with so much focus on him, it starts to feel self-absorbed. Lady Gaga is underused as Ally – Jackson’s devoted wife and rising pop star – who only seems to exist as a reason to get Cooper back on the sauce and back into his “please accept me as serious” mode. When actors are clearly chewing it up with an Oscar nod on their mind, I can’t help but notice. And I can’t help but dislike the pomposity of it.
Lady Gaga isn’t the only underutilized talent – with Andrew Dice Clay and Dave Chappelle making surprise appearances. Clay is unrecognizable as Ally’s father, but he’s so cliched it’s nearly embarrassing. Chappelle shows up in the “wise-man with sage advice role,” but quickly becomes an enabler of bad ideas. I can’t help but wonder what the point is. Dare I say the real star is Sam Elliot (no surprise there). He doesn’t deliver anything we haven’t seen before, but he makes me wish this was made 30 years ago with him in the lead.
A Star is Born needs balance. With no grounded emotional punch, haphazard editing, and flawed narrative structure, something is bound to give. I want to care, I just don’t. Cooper repeatedly gives hope that something is on the horizon only to mess it up time and again. That’s the problem with vanity projects – it’s hard to see your own faults. When you’ve got a massive talent like Lady Gaga and regulate her to the sidelines of what’s supposed to be a deep, emotional love story, somebody needs to step in and put the brakes on.
How this new incarnation of A Star is Born ranks among the previous versions is for you to decide, but I wanted more. Maybe it’s because I don’t like pop music, or maybe it’s just my Bradley Cooper complex, but this didn’t deliver for me. What’s good is underused, and what’s bad comes off as egotistical. Add to that the lack of an emotional center and you’ve got a combination that comes up short.
James is a writer, record collector, wrestling nerd, and tabletop gamer living with his family in Asheville, North Carolina. He is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association, the North Carolina Film Critics Association, and contributes to The Daily Orca, Razorcake Magazine, Mountain Xpress, and Asheville Movies.