A Star is Born

It’s a story often told, but rarely as well as this. It’s not a complicated story – man meets woman – he’s successful, she’s not, but as they fall in love she rises in their industry while he falls victim to his own demons, and it ends with his death and her survival. This version strips a lot of the accumulated layers away – it’s highly complicated on him and her and their bond of both music and love –but this only serves to make it all the more powerful. Bradley Cooper as the star-who-falls (and as writer-director) has a great ability to show how besotted he is by Lady Gaga as the star-who-rises – his devoted expression shows his complete admiration for her both as a person and as a talent (it even slightly weakens the film in the second half as his increasingly erratic behaviour technically should manifest as cruelty to her but he’s never quite willing to let the undercurrent of romantic devotion go). This one doesn’t go for the big notes of melodrama – the finest moments are small glances and shared intimacies, whether in a bedroom or in front of a Cochella Crowd. And it’s all the finer for feeling real and heartfelt – it’s weird that a big budget remake of an iconic Hollywood classic should feel so very personal and soulful, but it’s incredibly pleasing that it is. This is a sweet little heartbreaker.