I saw “A Star Is Born” and I remembered thinking to myself, “This will be my favorite movie.” I was biased—though correct—from the beginning.
A Star Is Born is the fourth and latest retelling of the original 1937 A Star Is Born. Starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, the movie musical follows the lives of two singers, one famous and one on the way to fame, as they meet and fall in love. Jackson Maine (Cooper) is a rock country star and incredible drunk who, on one of his drinking escapades, finds Ally (Gaga) at a drag bar. A waitress with the voice of an angel, Ally often performs at the local spot. After hearing Ally sing, the two fall in love and Ally joins him, performing alongside him on tour.
The plot of the movie centers around Ally’s quick rise to pop stardom. Venue after venue, Maine invites Ally onstage, and eventually, she lands herself a contract. As she begins to remake herself as a bubbly, sexy popstar, their once fairytale love story begins to unwind.
Anyone who has seen a single picture of Gaga knows the drama of her existence. However, Ally is no meat-dress-wearing, “Bad Romance”-singing character. She’s not prone to attention, and while she’s certainly a spitfire, she avoids the intentional drama Gaga has exuded over the past decade.
The music is what truly makes A Star Is Born the film that it is. Each performance will make you guilt yourself for never learning the guitar, and Gaga’s singing will make you curse your parents for your untuned vocal chords. At the end of A Star is Born, I cried harder than I ever have at any movie. And I haven’t stopped.