A Star Is Born English Movie
Not sure how creatively satisfying it must've been for Bradley Cooper to remake Aashiqui 2 but to each his own.
He does decide to take a more classy approach to the material than any of the previous versions of A Star Is Born took, replete with documentary style, fly on the wall camera work (DoP Matthew Libatique) and a non-traditional cutting style (Editor Jay Cassidy). While the film soars in the moments when the aforementioned two departments are shining, it does seem like the 1930s again, when the first film was made, every time the plot takes centre stage (Writers Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters).
Cooper the Director manages to strongly establish his treatment of the characters and the plot. His style manages to make traditional, boring musical performances into enthralling backstage-pass events. He loves to get very very close to his characters as they lift a weight off their souls while performing the music that makes them who they are. He keeps the melodrama down to a minimal as well and his Editor makes sure he doesn't linger in a moment for too long, trying to make something out of it that's not there.
In fact, this restraint combined with the editing and the rock doc feel gives off the effect that our two leads (Cooper and Lady Gaga) only sort of have a finite amount of time together or as if their time in each other's embrace has been cruelly cut short, which plays very nicely into the tragedy aspect of the film.
Add to that, Cooper seems to have understood the amount of scope his male lead gets in this version of A Star Is Born under his direction and Cooper the Actor laps up every single character beat that comes his way. I mean it as a compliment that Cooper had me seriously believe he was a tired, raging alcoholic who has barely any life left inside of him.
Where the film lags is in its plot progression. The amalgamation of Cooper as a Writer-Director and his own actor means the film plays out more like A Star Is Dying, meaning Gaga gets a decreasing amount of importance as the plot moves further ahead, which leaves her character seeming less of a protagonist than she's meant to be. The editing that's otherwise praiseworthy in its effectiveness has a less favorable side to it: sometimes scenes end tooooo jarringly and fast without registering its required impact.
A few subplots come along too fast, so that there's more screentime left for the more subtle, intimate moments (the strongest points of the film). But that left me too uninvolved in these subplots that are supposed to give the story chugging along. Same goes for the resolution, which did not seem like the only possible path to take for the characters, especially in a 2018 film.
Nevertheless, majority of the songs are good enough to groove along to in the moment (Shallows is the obvious pick of the lot) and the film mostly keeps you entertained and engrossed throughout, with the occasional dips. Cooper shines like a dying star in his acting performance that takes this rehash of a predictable story couple of notches above where it would've ended up.
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