“A Star is Born” premiered at the Venice Film Festival this weekend ahead of its October 5 US release date. According to critics, it…
“A Star is Born” premiered at the Venice Film Festival this weekend ahead of its October 5 US release date. According to critics, it’s a solid musical drama with transfixing performances Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, who is a “revelation.”
The movie is a remake of several other versions of the 1937 film of the same name. This one stars Cooper — also making his directorial debut — as a country singer past his peak and Lady Gaga as his ingenue who eclipses him in fame.
How does it stack up? Here’s what the critics are saying.
“The new generation supplants the existing one. For one star to get an award, a handful of defeated nominees have to swallow their pain, as the spotlight moves away from them. For one star to deliver the shock of the new, another one has to receive the shock of the old. ‘A Star Is Born’ turns that transaction into a love story.”
— The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw
“Given that the original soundtrack (much of which was written by Gaga and performed live at various arenas and festivals, including Coachella and Glastonbury), [the movie] contains some catchy tunes but no cast-iron earworms.”
— Little White Lies’s Adam Woodward
“The big question that’s been hovering in the air for months is, Can Lady Gaga act? It’s a ridiculous question. Singers often make fabulous actors. They’re primed for it: All singing is acting. But what’s surprising about Gaga is how charismatic she is without her usual extreme stage makeup, outlandish wigs and inventive costumes. It’s such a pleasure to look at her face, unadorned, with that extraordinary, face-defining nose — it’s like discovering a new country.”
— Time’s Stephanie Zacharek
“Their voices melt together on the line ‘We’re far from the shallow now,’ we melt along with them, and when Ally suddenly sends the song into a higher register, you will feel tingles rippling through your body. It’s an absolutely ecstatic moment, because it’s about the fusion of these two voices and souls, about Jackson coming back to life, about Ally realizing her destiny, and about the audience’s rediscovery of what romance in a movie can still be: a volt to the heart.”
— Variety’s Owen Gleiberman
“Cooper’s portrayal of a broken-down man is a heartbreaking wonder. Speaking in a low-octave growl and looking like he hasn’t showered in a month, Jackson carries himself as if he’s fully aware of his impending doom. If the bottle won’t kill him, the cocaine he smashes with a worn boot on a table might. The drunken, grizzled star isn’t exactly a novel character — Jeff Bridges won an Oscar for a similar role a decade ago in ‘Crazyheart.’ But Cooper, who also does his own plaintive vocals, has never exposed himself like this. That adds an extra layer of fascination.”
— Us Weekly’s Mara Reinstein
“Behind the camera, Cooper has clearly pledged allegiance not to the 1937 or 1954 ‘Stars’ but to the naturalistic New Cinema style of his ’70s predecessor, all long highways, canyon light, and sun-flared closeups. His camera works with a kind of feverish intimacy, closing in as Ally’s profile rises and Jackson stumbles back toward the bottle. That closeness also becomes a bell jar that descends over the film, keeping the audience locked into the couple’s growing unhappiness (and by extension the airless, lonely disconnect of fame).”
— Entertainment Weekly’s Leah Greenblatt
“What keeps the film from feeling like a mere rehash is the gut-level romanticism of it all. I’ve heard the rumors that Cooper and Gaga are barely speaking to each other on the press circuit, but you’d never be able to tell that from their on screen chemistry, which is raw and real even if it shows all the telltale signs of unsustainable infatuation.”
— Vulture’s Emily Yoshida
“The result is a ‘Star Is Born’ that injects its interactions with plain-spoken rawness and believability. You see that not only in the skittish romance at its heart, but via concerned looks from Jackson’s father-figure road manager (a terrific Sam Elliott, booming and righteous during his showdowns) or check-ins from Ally’s limo-driving, coulda-been-a-contender dad (Andrew Dice Clay, still on the dramatic upswing post-‘Blue Jasmine’). The movie becomes a drug-addiction story, percolating with updated musical tensions between Jackson’s Neil Young-ish canyon lifestyle and Ally’s slick pop reinvention.”
— Time Out New York’s Joshua Rothkopf
“A Star is Born” will be released on October 5.
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