The luster of “A Star Is Born” has faded somewhat since it opened in theaters, going from box office hit and surefire Oscar favorite to something of the ignored cousin in the awards season.
Everybody likes it, but not enough to actually win the gold.
Lady Gaga in particular has been blanked in most of the high-profile awards for her role as Ally, a plucky nobody who goes from dive bar crooner to pop star sensation in record time. I thought she was very good in the role, a real-life contender for “most famous person in the world” believably portraying someone who’s gobsmacked by her sudden fame.
But for me, Bradley Cooper quietly steals the show as Jackson Maine, the boozy country/rock singer who gives Ally a rocket ride to fame, only to see their relationship suffer when her rising star eclipses his fading one. There’s an unspoken ache to his performance that I found just riveting.
This is the fourth time this story has been told, with iterations in the 1930s, ‘50s and ‘70s prior to this one. (I’ve only seen the first.)
That lends the movie an ageless quality, yet it also felt very fresh and urgent to these eyes. What I took away from the experience is a more nuanced look at fame than we usually see in the movies. Regular folks hear about the substance abuse and mental health problems of celebrities and wished they could be so cursed with wealth and stature.
But Cooper, who directed and co-wrote the script with Eric Roth and Will Fetters, gives us an insider’s look at how normal life becomes warped by fame into an upside-down, inside-out travail that would crush most people.
With terrific songs (most written or co-written by Gaga), a pair of standout lead performances and a stellar supporting turn by Sam Elliott as Jackson’s older brother, “A Star Is Born” is a prime example that even though Hollywood constantly repeats itself, it can still provide indelible experiences along the way.
Video extras are decent, and decidedly music-heavy. This includes music videos of four songs -- “Shallow,” “Always Remember Us This Way,” “Look What I Found” and “I’ll Never Love Again” -- as well as jam sessions of three more: “Baby What You Want Me To Do,” “Midnight Special” and “Is That Alright.”
There’s also a making-of documentary, “The Road to Stardom.”
What’s it like to become famous? “A Star Is Born” provides as close an approximation as us peasants are ever apt to experience.
It’s a story of being a nobody and feeling all alone and ignored, and then suddenly there are people all around you constantly telling you what you should do and strangers acting as if they know you.
Lady Gaga, arguably the most famous singer in the world -- if it’s not her, then it’s Beyonce, who was originally in talks for this role -- plays a regular girl, Ally, who goes from crooning in a dive drag bar to the biggest stage in the world.
As with the three previous film versions of this story, the young star is helped along through their romance with an older big star, who eventually sees theirs become eclipsed and grows resentful. I’ve only ever seen the 1937 original and not the musical versions starring Judy Garland and Barbara Streisand from the 1950s and ‘70s, respectively.
Here Gaga’s co-star is Bradley Cooper, who also jumps into the director’s chair for the first time, as well as co-writing the script with Eric Roth and Will Fetters. I’m sure it will be Gaga who gets most of the attention, in a big showy performance that meshes well with her massive star persona. She wrote or co-wrote many of the songs in the movie, and at least a handful are showstoppers.
But it’s Cooper who grabbed my heart in a stricken performance as Jackson Maine, a boozy rocker/cowboy who everybody sees as the golden boy but really feels like a star-crossed loser in his heart. It’s as fine and sensitive performance as he’s ever given, and should be remembered during the awards season.
Cooper also proves to be a more than passable singer, belting out hard-edged rock tunes with a country tinge, as well playing the guitar (or miming doing so) quite believably.
He drops his voice into the basement, chewing his dialogue in a rich, deep burr that immediately made me think of Sam Elliott, which makes sense since he plays Jackson’s much older half-brother.
They used to sing together, but Bobby has now become the tour manager-slash-troubleshooter. Resentments abound -- about the music, the sweaty state fairs where they play, the hearing loss that secretly plagues Jackson. (I identified with him, trying to play it cool while having to ask people to repeat themselves.)
When Jackson stops off in a bar for a drink after one of his shows, he’s ensorcelled by Ally, belting out a saucy version of “La Vie En Rose” while handing out flowers. They spend a magical night drinking, talking, flirting and singing. Next thing she knows Ally has been flown in by jet for his next concert, invited on stage and made to sing one of her songs -- which no one’s heard before -- to a crowd of thousands.
The story is pretty languid and magical the first half, as her star blooms. The second half of the movie flies by very quickly as Ally goes from featured singer in Jackson’s band to a pop sensation all on her own, assisted by Rez (Rafi Gabron), a brilliant but mercenary manager.
This is the rare movie that, even at 135 minutes, could have stood to be a little longer.
The electricity between Gaga and Cooper is undeniable. It’s also fascinating to watch their relationship morph. In the beginning he’s clearly in charge, enjoying granting her a moment in the sun. Later, as his boozing outstrips his talent, Ally becomes the caretaker.
In one memorable scene, they cuddle on a balcony overlooking a massive billboard of her face just before her first album hits. He whispers in her ear to stay true to herself as an artist, not to lose herself in the hype the way he did.
It’s easy to look at all the drinking, drugs and partying and wonder why so many famous people throw their talents away. “A Star Is Born” invites inside the rarest of bubbles and helps us grasp the intense pressure that comes with having to perform. The biggest names often hide the most vulnerable souls.
"Remember Me" is a mess of a movie, but its flaws are those of a cast and crew trying to do too much, rather than taking the easy way out with cliches and familiar plot devices.
The romantic drama has a twist ending that feels cheap and exploitative. And some of the actors -- notably Chris Cooper -- get lost in the ambitious but undisciplined storytelling.
Still, I would rather sit through a dozen noble failures like this than the latest idiot comedy or sentimental pap.
Robert Pattinson, in his first role since the "Twilight" movies made him a phenom, plays Tyler Hawkins, the scion of a well-to-do family who's slumming it in the poorer boroughs of New York City. He's seriously estranged from his business magnate father (Pierce Brosnan, proving once again that one of the few things he can't do is a convincing American accent).
He attends college, but not officially, only auditing some classes, and spends most of his time working part time at a book store, or hanging out in a coffee shop writing in a journal that he shows to no one. He's coasting through life, undecided about just about everything.
It's the sort of role that seems designed to promote Pattinson's mojo as a heartthrob rather than build a discernible, believable character. He twitches a lot and clenches his jaw and doesn't look people in the eye, except for the one person in the world he truly cares about, his little sister, Caroline. Tyler is the classic sensitive/broken soul who needs a romance to assemble the disparate pieces of his lackadaisical life.
That would be a role for Ally, played by Emilie de Ravin (an Aussie whose American accent is also strained). She's the daughter of a tough cop (Cooper) and a mother who was gunned down when she was 11. (Mom is played by Martha Plimpton, who I can't even remember the last time I saw her onscreen, and it makes me happy seeing her.)
Ally's dad compensates for his wife's murder by keeping a sharp eye on his daughter. Needless to say, he doesn't much care for the unambitious Tyler or his horndog roommate Aidan (Tate Ellington). In fact, the two meet the cop before Ally, when they try to break up a street fight. Tyler mouths off to him and so he throws them in jail. Aidan spots Ally with her father, and suggests as a joke that Tyler flirt with Ally using his gift with "that freaky poetic crap" that the gals love.
So he does, but then they fall for each other for real. Friction with the two fathers exacerbates their relationship on either end, which is further strained by other family problems for Tyler.
The screenplay by rookie Will Fetters meanders and loses its way, more interested in individual scenes than any kind of narrative arc. Some of its eddies are interesting enough in their own right, while other times we wish the film would hurry up. I kept waiting for things to happen -- such as the two a-hole fathers meeting -- that never did, and some of the places the story did go were baffling and boring.
For instance, there's a whole long sequence about Tyler sister Caroline getting hazed by some school mates at a sleepover party. Kids can be nasty to each other, and I don't want to minimize the effects of bullying. But the way the entire Hawkins clan goes into crisis mode over some pretty mild behavior seemed way overblown. Tyler's super-busy father, who doesn't even bother to acknowledge his son's 22nd birthday, stops everything he's doing to rush over. It just felt contrived and wrong to me.
The title comes from Tyler's brother Michael, who killed himself six years earlier. Tyler has Michael's name tattooed over his heart, and gets all cold and moody whenever anyone brings the subject up. The movie doesn't really do anything with this information other than use it whenever an angsty moment is required.
The Ally/Tyler romance didn't really do anything for me. We believe that they're a couple because the movie tells us so, not because they seem fated to be together. I also didn't like how they treated the character of Ally's father. He's all rage without any paternal warmth. We never spend any time with him, so we don't understand what makes him tick. All we see is him doing bad things, so eventually we just figure he's a bad guy.
(I will say that if I were Tyler, after the same police detective beat me up twice, I'd be thinking about a conversation with his lieutenant.)
Director Allen Coulter is a TV veteran who made the excellent "Holllywoodland" a few years back, and he seems to have a nice touch with actors but not with the mechanics of storytelling. I really liked the performance he got out of Ruby Jerins as little Caroline -- she seemed to hold all the hope and fears of a lonely, gifted child in her every glance.
I won't say anything about the strange, shameful ending, other than the film's timeline should have tipped me off.
It doesn't work, other than as a purely manipulative trick. For some reason, I want to believe the people behind this movie are better than that, so I'll write it off as a profoundly misguided mistake rather than a cynical ploy.
