'A Star Is Born' Review

This post contains spoilers.
Rating: 5/5

A Star Is Born takes viewers through the chance encounter of two souls, troubled each in their own way and shows how they come together and how they tragically fall apart. This revamped story is more like a Shakespearean tragedy than anything that has been released in a while. With a combined amazing acting, surprisingly good soundtrack and vocals, and stunning videography, A Star Is Born was set for the successful movie it achieved.

This film marks Bradley Cooper's directorial debut and a modern remake on the three previous A Star Is Born movies. A story line filled with love, heartbreak, and downward spiral of mental health, this blockbuster is a must see.

Within the first few minutes of the movie, it is more than abundantly clear that the main character Jackson Maine (played by Bradley Cooper) is an artist who abuses pharmaceuticals and alcohol. Another scene within the first minute had a huge literal sign in the background of Jack in the car that foreshadows the tragic ending. 

The happen stance meeting of Jack and Ally (played by Lady Gaga) occurs when Jack stumbles into a drag bar in desperate search of a drink and becomes moved to tears when he hears Ally sing. Even at the beginning Ally is weary of Jack's clear alcoholism even as she feels unbelievably drawn to him.

Jack comes on strong from the beginning, pushy to an almost uncomfortable degree that is felt by Ally's disbelief of his actions and eventual giving in to his wild schemes. Jack has his driver go to Ally's house because he wants her to fly to his show after only meeting and knowing her from the night before. The driver has orders not to leave and follows Ally to work where Ally decides to quit after another encounter with her demeaning boss. At the show, Jack tries dragging a nervous Ally on stage to perform their song they wrote together the night before. Ally eventually makes the choice to join him.

This performance is one of the highlights and peak of the raw talent both Bradley and Gaga vocally possess. Gaga's high notes in "Shallow" caused goosebumps to raise head to toe in the surround sound quality of the theater. 

Another highlight throughout the movie is the cinematic parallels between the highs and lows of the two characters whose lives are intertwined. As Ally signs with a label and only grows more popular while simultaneously losing the original meaning in her songwriting, Jack is losing his hearing at a rapid pace and drinking heavier than ever. These splitting paths come to a head when Ally wins a Grammy while Jack is demoted from performer to backup guitar player at the same Grammy awards show. The peak of Ally's musical career is tarnished when Jack drinks and takes too many pills and stumbles onstage in the middle of Ally's acceptance speech. While Ally is trying to keep her composure and rap up her speech, Jack urinates on himself and collapses on stage.

In a powerful scene after this, Ally's father roughly pushes a belligerent Jack against the wall, screaming "How could you do this to her?" in his face. Later Ally comes in while Jack is practically comatose in the shower and repeats over and over, "He's fine. We're fine. He's fine."

Throughout the movies documentation of Jack and Ally's relationship and eventual marriage, there are many times where Jack goes through fazes of being sober and being too gone to function. The frustration felt by the audience every time he picks up a pill bottle or bottle of alcohol is only an echo of what the reality of these situations feel like. While Ally shows continuous negative response to Jack's substance abuse, only this last final incident is what ends up with Jack in rehab.

A pivotal scene shows Ally's manager telling Jack all the things he was feeling insecure about towards his and Ally's relationship. Telling him she looks like a fool even staying married to him and that everyone including Jack himself knows he'll inevitably go back to drinking, Rez shows the final full extent to how evil he truly is. While glimpses and bad vibes are seen from this character from the second he is introduced to this movie, this is by far the worst thing he does.

After months of dedicated sobriety, Jack waits until Ally is doing her show before clips are shown leading up to him hanging himself. The multiple times of hesitation show, as much as possible, the inner turmoil Jack feels before turning back to his pharmaceutical vice and hanging himself in their garage. In a final scene of this heart wrenching area of the movie, Ally and Jack's family dog whines outside of the closed garage while Jack is seen through the small window of the garage door, swaying.

Scene at the beginning that foreshadowed Jack's unfortunate end.

A poignant scene after this is when Ally tells Jack's brother, "I keep going over and over everything" meaning she tries to see what could have happened and what she could have said to Jack to set him to this final decision. The devastating reality that Ally will never know that Rez was the final nail in Jack's mental health struggle coffin and the reason Jack decides to take his life is hard to swallow. The movie's reflection on mental health and addiction struggles shows hard subjects that we may never understand. Anyone's conversation with someone could be their last and when someone takes their life you never know what or who pushed them to lose sight of it all and feel so desperate they end their life.

Overall this movie tells of a struggle not uncommon especially of those who have fame and money but even regular people, seeing as opioed addiction is the highest it has ever been.

The movie ends with Ally singing Jack's song "I'll Never Love Again" with tears streaming down her face while memories play of the two of them happy. With one final tear rolling down Ally's face and one final haunting look skyward, the screen goes dark.