A Star Is Born

So what do we know after watching this film? Lady Gaga can act and Bradley Cooper can sing plus direct!

Prepared to have your feet swept off the grounds walking into A Star Is Born, for it is an astonishingly remarkable musical romance fiesta! Being purely a high order directorial achievement, this is a motion picture that will take you on a trip available only once in a lifetime! Elite camerawork with fluid navigations, lush colours that are fantastical yet real plus timely film editing were the staples of debutant Bradley Cooper's direction. What he also did so well was make us feel the same way he, the protagonist, felt upon being mesmerized by the heroine's singing skills for the first time (and her fake eyebrows too!). Character related information was clearly conveyed by actions. The narrative time gap could have been established better, but the fade-in did an okay partial job.

A Star Is Born wouldn't have been half as effective as it was without the powerful original soundtrack. It has the ability to gift you an extra soul! What a rejuvenating drug it was! And it goes without saying Gaga's vocals brought the numbers to life! The score, coupled with the lead couple's chemistry, transfigured this whole experience into a magical spectacle!

Speaking about the lead couple's chemistry, Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga didn't seem they were acting. It was too real! Them sharing words and interactions, bonding over mic and songs were simply beautiful! Nose description, guitar ring, sudden meeting in dressing room, swollen hand treatment and the impromptu stage performances were modern classic stuffs! Since we're on the topic of scenes now, here's to note that the urination embarrassment on Grammy stage was absolutely crazy!

Actors, as aforementioned, did a terrific job! While Bradley Cooper as Jack and Lady Gaga as Ally were phenomenal on their own rights, Sam Elliot as the protagonist's elder brother Bobby was incredible! There's a sequence you should watch out for, where Jack tells his brother that he has always wanted to be like him as Bob reverses his car with tears welled up in his eyes - this one clip will tell you how natural this thespian is! Jack and Bob's relationship was unique, and their past with father was unclear in a good way, because depression, trauma, pain, Ghost and Lie are not always easy to state in sentences. If characters are able to articulate / explain / put what's been troubling them in words, they wouldn't be victims anymore, would they?

Although Cooper's direction shone all the way, the writing had many missed opportunities as it skipped a lot of the important intermediate steps. Via contrast, the writers managed to show us how the duo's individual lives became significantly greater than it was before they met. Ally turned into an overnight star and Jack's performance improved after a long time. There were even whispers of him stopping his substance and liquor addiction because of this new partnership. Where the plot began to feel rushed or half-baked was post the moment Ally got her official deal. This is a crucial story point as it is insinuating at the pair's eventual emotional separation; in other words, the start of drifting away from each other. While we saw Ally's gradual transformation into a celebrity, we didn't get to see how Jack's career progressively crippled. Also, if you noticed, the husband-wife's first quarrel in the bathtub felt abrupt, as these two were only shown lovey-dovey to each other all this while without any hints at any rifts. Intermediate steps are vital, so that we don't feel anything's coming out of left field. If only we saw their relationship slowly falling in sick and Jack's stardom rolling downhill into oblivion (in exact contrast to Ally's), the protagonist's shocking death would have been way more impactful and heartbreaking!