A Star Is Born (2018)
Lady Gaga can sing, but can she act?
Presentation:
Lady Gaga’s first starring role in Bradley Cooper’s self-directed and starred film. First of all, Lady Gaga is talented. It’s very clear she can sing and move people with her voice. Her acting on the other hand was admirable but did have room for improvement. Is it unreasonable to expect greatness from a new actress coming from pop songwriting? Perhaps, but there is definitely a key element missing from this film. Her character calls for amateur inexperience, but somehow she fails to bring the compelling X factor to build a connection with the audience. She’s mesmerizing when singing, but she feels too ordinary as an actor. Unfortunately Bradley Cooper should have compensated for her acting inexperience but he’s so focused on self-absorbed method acting as usual that the connection with the audience falls flat. Cooper convincingly portrays a drunk rockstar but the chemistry didn’t sit right with me. As this film is a remake, it felt like they were too focused on reenacting scene after scene that they forgot to sell us on their romance. The music also has a few good numbers.
Conclusion:
This romance feels very forced. This is the problem with remakes in general. Directors are always trying to reenact and adapt prior material, but there are always magical circumstances that cannot be reproduced. As a result, this film feels like it is trying to be something it is not, and we can feel the forced fraudulence as the audience. Their romance is too choreographed, rehearsed, stiff, ultimately feeling like the actors are cardboard cutouts slotted into predefined roles. The storyline was also a bit unbelievable for me. But if you find their chemistry believable from the get-go, perhaps you will find the love genuine, which is what the emotional payoff hinges on. A star is born, but I think Bradley Cooper thinks it’s him.
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