A Star Is Born

Writer/director Bradley Cooper's remake of the venerable romantic showbiz melodrama is more a remake of the 1976 film starring Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson than either the original 1937 William A. Wellman picture with Janet Gaynor and Fredric March or the more famous George Cukor/Moss Hart musical with Judy Garland and James Mason. It's a wise choice, as the terrific Streisand version is unfairly maligned as an unsuccessful vanity project. Still, Cooper's film is a superior remake to the Streisand/Jon Peters/Frank Pierson film, even though it is far less inventive in terms of transforming the setting from one industry to another. Cooper and his co-screenwriters, Eric Roth and Will Fetters, streamline and improve upon Pierson's script, co-written by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion, shifting more of the focus onto the hard-drinking, fading male star without ever taking the spotlight away from the young, rising female star. In these roles, Cooper casts himself and Lady Gaga as Jackson Maine and Ally Campana, and they are phenomenal together.

Whereas Streisand, who maintained total control over her version, seems like a fully evolved star even at the beginning of her picture, Gaga fully dismantles her pop star persona for the top of the Cooper version. The main character in A Star is Born needs to be vulnerable and unsure of herself for the film to have a real narrative arc. Both Streisand and Gaga's personas were well-established when they each made their A Star is Born; however, Gaga's look and stage identity are so far removed from her actual physicality and personality that most of us didn't even know what she really looked like offstage. Thus, we accept her portrayal of the wide-eyed amateur when she meets Cooper's famous world-weary rocker, and we feel a sense of discovery as she steps into the spotlight. The 2018 version also focuses much less on the inevitable ups and downs of celebrity life and more on how power dynamics are navigated in a relationship between two successful creative individuals.

All the versions of A Star Is Born are terrific, but this is the first one that isn't compromised in some significant way. Everyone involved in this picture feels like they're making the same movie. The musical numbers feel exactly correct, with no song feeling at a level of quality that would not be achievable by either of these songwriters at these stages of their careers. The songs are catchy, uncomplicated, and heartfelt, especially the Oscar-winning "Shallow." The supporting cast is every bit as great as the leads, especially Andrew Dice Clay as Gaga's limo driver father, and Sam Elliott as Cooper's gruff older half-brother and manager. Cooper fully transforms his voice in this movie into a growl that feels oddly familiar. Then, when Elliott shows up, we realize Cooper is basically "doing" Sam Elliott, yet his performance never falls into a mere impression, even when we see them together. It's all the more impressive when, during a heated argument, Elliott's Bobby Maine accuses Cooper's Jackson Maine of stealing his voice. The line "You stole my voice" should be the stuff of high camp and get a bad laugh, yet this movie and these actors pull it off. That's kind of astounding.

The only weak link in this movie is the character of Rez Gavron, Ally's manager. The slimy young British music producer played by Rafi Gavron is the only two-dimensional character in the film. He's a stock caricature who is always chasing what's new and sexy, and doesn't understand the soul of the performer he's representing. He also, apparently, doesn't understand how showbiz works because, unlike film audiences in the 1950s, music fans in the Aughts would have to witness something far worse than an embarrassing moment of televised drunkenness not to cheer the pop star they worship when she stands by her man as he struggles with sobriety. When Gavron tells Aly that bringing Jackson on tour with her is not an option, we think, "Really Rez? You can't figure out a way to spin this to your advantage?"

So maybe I'm wrong when I say Copper's film is the only version of this story that isn't compromised in some way, as the movie's ending does require that Jackson realize that he needs to get out of Ally's way for her to succeed fully, and, in this genre and this era, that doesn't seem totally accurate. Still, this version of A Star Is Born conveys so much raw truth that this one subpar aspect seems forgivable. Additionally, it seems fitting that, like all the other versions, there's something inherently flawed or corrupted about this movie that prevents it from being a masterpiece. If anyone ever made the perfect version of A Star Is Born, there'd be less reason to keep remaking it, and this is one story that really should be retold by and for each successive generation.