[Review] A Star Is Born (7/10)

Title - A Star Is Born
Studio - Warner Bros. Pictures
Starring - Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, Sam Elliott, Dave Chappelle
Writer - Eric Roth, Will Fetters, Bradley Cooper
Director - Bradley Cooper
Release - 5 October 2018

The first act of this movie was perfect. Then, something went really wrong with the editing.

It was as if Bradley Cooper's first outing as a director did not shoot enough footage for each scene in the second act and had to rely on the magic of editing to stitch scenes together. They looked incomplete or heavily censored to a point where I did not know whether it was censored or poor editing (because there was a lot to censor for it to be shown in Brunei).

But performance wise, Cooper brought his A-game. Even though that was his face, I only saw his character. And the way he was able to play guitar and sing, I almost believed he is a singer by trade.

Lady Gaga was no slouch either. Standing beside Cooper, she did not take me out of the movie for the most part. There was still Lady Gaga in her character but the distraction did not come often.

And nothing could prepare you for that amazing, raw vocals she was able to summon at any time - be it when she took out the thrash and started singing, or onstage for the first time and just belting her heart out. That is the reason why she is in this role - her pure talent was believable.

However, I don't believe Cooper brought out the best actress in her. Minor distractions aside, I wanted her to make me feel more in that final scene and she did not. In turn, it dampened the following scene with Cooper in it when that scene should not have left any dry eye in the cinema. Still, a very impressive outing by Lady Gaga.

Also, the character development for her was a little off. In one scene she said she did not recognize herself; but following that she made even more drastic changes and nothing was addressed.

There was also a veranda scene where Cooper was giving her advice, that advice never related back to anything. So again I have to question the writing. Gaga's character with her manager also never spent enough exchanges within each scene to have any impact.

What could have cut shorter were the musical montages, which I could actually have done without.

Gaga never looked this good onscreen while in "American Horror Story", but perhaps her acting career will now blossom just like the title here suggested.