so inexhaustible is our hunger for stories about celebrity, that this is the fourth retelling of A Star Is Born—the tale of an ingenue's rise to fame at the expense of the man who elevated her. The 2018 remake was directed and co-written by Bradley Cooper, who also stars as has-been rock musician Jackson Maine alongside Lady Gaga, who plays a talented singer named Ally who's stuck in a service job and living with her father. After his own concert, Jackson stumbles upon Ally performing at a local drag bar. Instantly intrigued, he chases her down and gives her the platform to achieve her dreams. Her fame eventually eclipses his own.
While this version is impressively performed and manages to revive the dated source material for 2018, it is still riddled with its predecessors' flaws: an old-school storyline that relies too heavily on celebrity idolatry and female emotional labor, plus pacing that unravels in the second act. Most disappointingly, the film just isn’t very fun.
While A Star is Born didn’t portent to be completely lighthearted, the trailers certainly dazzled with snippets of a cute, loving relationship. This is not really what we get. A Star is Born’s charm relies so precisely on the chemistry between its protagonists—the film’s most joyful moments are when Ally and Jackson are in a near transcendent state of rapport—that disliking the central relationship makes it incredibly difficult to enjoy much of the film or consider it anything other than a tragedy.
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