There’s only one antidote for the weird world we live in, an age of political anxiety, Instagram envy, humorless personal essays that treat basic life experiences like major tragedies, and selfies: We need more melodramas, movies that show human beings making all sorts of wrong choices, falling in love with people from whom they should run a mile, and in the end recovering lost bits of themselves, all while looking fabulous. Exaggeration is key—a tasteful, sensible melodrama is no melodrama at all—and you need a star who can radiate the nobility of suffering with Kabuki-level grandeur. Someone like Lady Gaga. Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born is just on the right side of tasteful, which is to say it’s slightly on the wrong side: It could stand to be more nutso in its expression of grand human emotions and dismal human failures. But it works anyway: You come away feeling something for these people, flawed individuals who are trying to hold their cracked pieces of self together—or to mend the cracks of those they love. Cooper plays charming but sozzled country star Jackson Maine, a guy who gets through each show—and every day—losing himself in booze. He’s losing his hearing, too, though he’s of course in denial about that, no matter how much his brother and ersatz caretaker, Bobby (Sam Elliott), tries to talk sense into him. Enter Lady Gaga—the superstar who was born Stefani Germanotta, though the movie doesn’t credit her as such—as Ally, a restaurant worker who also sings and writes songs. After lurching through one of his own shows, Jackson sees her performing in a drag bar—the queens all love her, so they’re happy to have her onstage. In her tiny slip dress, with hyper theatrical eyebrows, like slender black parentheses, stuck over her own, she’s like an alien from Planet Song, shimmering her way through “La Vie en Rose.” If you’re looking for comparisons to Janet Gaynor, Judy Garland or Barbara Streisand, the other Star Is Born stars (this is the third or fourth remake, depending on whether or not you count George Cukor’s 1932 What Price Hollywood? ), Gaga isn’t much like any of them: She’s more like Liza Minnelli, who channeled some of her mother’s fragility but tempered it with pluckiness. When Gaga’s Ally sings, she’s less a creature from over the rainbow than a sprite from another world who has quickly learned the ropes of our own fire and earth. MORE: What to Know About the Original A Star Is Born—and the Other Versions, Too No wonder Jackson falls for her. Her persuades her to have a late-night, post-show drink with him, and she gets into a fist fight defending him from a boor waving a phone camera in his face: This is the beginning of a pattern, that of the woman trying to save the man, but her boldness is striking. Jackson drives her to a convenience store and applies a bag of frozen veggies to her hand; he’s the caretaker for now. Then, as they sit in the nighttime parking lot, he removes her rings, lest they get stuck, by closing his lips gently around her swelling fingers. She returns the favor by singing, at his request, a scrap of a song she’s written. It’s a lovely scene, a brush-stroke vignette of two people finding enchantment in one another. If you’ve seen any of the previous Star Is Born iterations—the 1937 with Gaynor and Frederic March, the 1954 with Garland and James Mason, or the 1976 with Streisand and Kris Kristofferson—you know just how wrong this story can go. And if you’re new to this particular formula, welcome. Cooper’s version proves there’s always a way to freshen up old material. The finest scenes are the early ones, in which Jackson, with true generosity, gives Ally’s career a boost, first by inviting her onstage for a song, and then turning her into a true partner. 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. Later in the story, as Ally’s career takes off while Jackson’s fizzles, Gaga is less entrancing though no less likable: Ally connects with a manager who reshapes her image (Rafi Gavron), turning her from a fresh-faced singer-songwriter to a pop siren with hyper-red hair and increasingly theatrical clothes. This is where the movie loses a few puffs of steam. It’s hard not to miss Ally’s unadorned face and unflashy brown hair: You might find yourself wanting more Germanotta and less Gaga, Even so, Ally the superstar is still nowhere near as mythically outsized as Gaga herself is. In fact, as pop creations go, she’s rather average, though she certainly knows her way around a power ballad. And she’s still the star of this whole show. As her co-star and director, Cooper shows an artistic generosity that’s almost courtly. The basic Star is Born story is geared so you pity the man almost more than you admire the woman. In every version, the man threatens to steal the show with his own degradation; the woman’s protective fortitude is far less interesting. But as an actor, Cooper fades into the corner at just the right moments, allowing Gaga to shine. He recognizes that as a performer, she’s larger than life; he’s just about life-sized, and there’s no shame in that. He also creates a suitable showcase for small but terrific performances from the likes of Dave Chappelle (as one of Jackson’s more sensible friends from the music world) and Andrew Dice Clay (as Ally’s limo-driving dad, Lorenzo). Cooper makes some smart plot choices, too. (The screenplay is by Eric Roth, Cooper and Will Fetters.) Jackson’s demise is sensitively handled—nothing like Kris Kristofferson crashing his car just so Streisand can rush to the scene and cradle his lifeless head with sorrowful gusto. (Who thought that was a good idea?) And he keeps the filmmaking straightforward and unvarnished. It’s wonderful to see a first-time filmmaker who’s more interested in effective storytelling than in impressing us; telling a story effectively is hard enough. Best of all, Cooper has succeeded in making a terrific melodrama for the modern age. This is a story of big personalities and even bigger human mistakes. These days we’re always ready for our own close-ups. What a relief to turn the stage over to someone else for a change. Sign up for our Entertainment Newsletter. Subscribe to More to the Story to get the context you need for the pop culture you love. Please enter a valid email address. * The request timed out and you did not successfully sign up. Please attempt to sign up again. Sign Up Now An unexpected error has occurred with your sign up. Please try again later. Check the box if you do not wish to receive promotional offers via email from TIME. You can unsubscribe at any time. By signing up you are agreeing to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply. Thank you! For your security, we've sent a confirmation email to the address you entered. Click the link to confirm your subscription and begin receiving our newsletters. If you don't get the confirmation within 10 minutes, please check your spam folder. Contact us at letters@time.com.<doc-sep>Do you hear that noise? I hear it too, some sort of guttural yell, a plea to the gods to be heard. It’s getting louder no— This can mean only one thing: The press tour for Bradley Cooper and Stefani Germanotta’s—sorry, Lady Gaga’s—musical drama, A Star Is Born, is gearing up. The movie, which hits theaters in October and, again, is a remake of a remake of a remake, has become one of 2018’s most-talked-about films since the first trailer dropped in June. Due to some combination of Lady Gaga being in a starring role, Cooper directing for the first time, early murmurs dubbing the movie a classic, and of course the image of Cooper sticking his head out of a car window looking quite jaundiced, A Star Is Born is the sweet, sweet nexus of prestige-inclined cinema and memeability. Not since HBO’s The Young Pope has a piece of art been so befuddling and so tantalizing. A Star Is Born is either going to be the best movie of the year or the most baffling misfire in recent memory and biggest winner at next year’s Razzies. Which is why we just had to introduce Star Watch: an ongoing collection of updates from the movie’s press tour that reiterate just how gloriously confusing it is. Perhaps a month from know we will know if A Star Is Born is a masterpiece or a disasterpiece; until then, this is all we have. Monday, August 27: A Star Is Born Is the Greatest Movie in the History of Cinema Reviews are not out for A Star Is Born—it won’t debut until Friday at the Venice International Film Festival—but one website did accidentally publish a review early, and, for narrative sake, it was the best possible review of A Star Is Born that could have ever been prematurely published. What Talkhouse inadvertently unleashed upon the internet by publishing filmmaker Jim Hemphill’s review is akin to the opening of the Ark of the Covenant, because according to Hemphill, A Star Is Born might be … the greatest movie ever made? Hemphill compared his viewing experience to the first time he watched Goodfellas, Boogie Nights, and Unforgiven—some of the greatest films ever made—and compared Cooper’s directorial debut to that of Robert Redford, with Ordinary People (read: very good). Furthermore, Hemphill wrote that “Cooper has somehow figured out how to marry the precision of a [Alfred] Hitchcock or [Stanley] Kubrick with the emotional generosity and psychologically probing nature of a [John] Cassavetes or [Elia] Kazan.” OK, then! To recap: Cooper may be one of the best filmmakers of all time, and the movie itself may be as good as some of Martin Scorsese’s and Paul Thomas Anderson’s best work. As if I weren’t already struggling to parse my feelings about A Star Is Born, Hemphill comes flying off the top rope and basically calls it the best movie ever made. The hyperbole of it all is confounding, and yet, very fitting. Thursday, August 30: Hell Yeah, This Soundtrack While you’ll have to wait until A Star Is Born’s October release to listen to the soundtrack, you can look at the track list right now and let it burrow into your mind. The first thing you need to know about this soundtrack is that it features 15 dialogue tracks that, quote, ”take listeners on a journey that mirrors the experience of seeing the film,” as if listening to people talk equates to a cinematic experience. (That being said: I would watch this movie in 4DX if someone poured Bradley Cooper’s whiskey on me.) The second thing you need to know is that Lady Gaga is, bizarrely, covering “La Vie En Rose,” and I am not quite sure how the film is going to necessitate such a thing. The song titles in general serve as one giant spoiler mapping out the plot of the film—where Cooper and Gaga make their pitstops (“First Stop, Arizona,” “Memphis”), how they see the concept of love (“I Don’t Know What Love Is”), why they did that (“Why Did You Do That?”), when they go to Saturday Night Live (“SNL”), and where they presumably copulate (“Hair Body Face”). This is puzzling without even getting into the fact that five songs are credited solely to Bradley Cooper. Again: How on earth is this going to be the greatest movie of our lifetimes? Thursday, August 30: Lady Gaga’s Close-up (and Bradley Cooper’s Makeup Removal Techniques) There is a lot wild stuff in the Los Angeles Times’ feature on Lady Gaga’s preparation for her role in the movie, a classic “I’m Trying As Hard As Possible to Win an Oscar” profile. Let’s rank the five best, most “how is this a real thing? !” details. 5. Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper developed a special bond on set and used code words like “Tony” and “Ninja” to communicate with one another. (In case you’re wondering, “Tony” was meant to evoke a feeling of warmth, and “Ninja” meant that she needed to focus. True brilliance from this generation’s Stanley Kubrick.) 4. Lady Gaga makes a very clear distinction between her own musical upbringings and that of her onscreen character, Ally. “What’s different from Ally than me is that when I wanted to become a singer, I hit the concrete running,” says Gaga. “I was dragging my piano from dive bar to dive bar to play music. I was calling people, faking being my own manager to get gigs. I really believed in myself that I could do this and that I wasn’t going to stop until I made it. … The truth is, when we meet Ally, she’s given up on herself. And that’s very different from me. I just wasn’t overwhelmed by the odds.” Man, really throwing Ally under the tour bus here, aren’t we, Lady Gaga? 3. For the movie’s concert performances, Lady Gaga says she decided to “tone things down.” Um, about that … 2. Gaga reveals that as a child, she would watch the Oscars “wrapped in a gown made of blankets” and accept a fake Oscar next to her television, atop a crate. [Whispers] I think Lady Gaga wants an Oscar. 1. The profile begins with a quote from Cooper saying, “Take it off.” (I gasped.) Fortunately, it becomes clear that Cooper was referring to Gaga’s makeup; unfortunately, it becomes clear that he was referring to Gaga’s makeup, and that he himself wanted to remove it from her face. “Completely open,” he added. “No artifice.” The image of Bradley Cooper wiping Lady Gaga’s makeup off and then sumptuously (I’m assuming) saying, “No artifice” will be etched in my memory until the end of time. This is the best movie of the year, folks. Friday, August 31: A Star Is Born Screening Struck by Lightning (Seriously), Gets Emotional Reviews The Venice Film Festival was the venue for the first public screening of A Star Is Born. Things got off to a fitting start: Technical difficulties delayed the screening for 15 minutes, Variety reports, during which Lady Gaga was “chuckling and blowing kisses to the audience.” And just to give you a better mental picture, she was doing all of this while wearing Villanelle’s poofy pink dress from Killing Eve. Lady Gaga during unexpected break in Star is Born premiere. Screen went black more than 10 minutes ago.... pic.twitter.com/rllPry91vU — Nick Vivarelli (@NickVivarelli) August 31, 2018 Was the lightning strike a biblical warning that A Star Is Born is not meant for mortal eyes—that it is either too epically brilliant or too disastrous for the human mind to properly process? Is Lady Gaga a stronger cosmic force than God? Who’s to say? As it turns out, the reviews that came out of that screening were equally rapturous. Variety hailed the movie as an “emotional knockout” and described Cooper’s character as having “hard-bitten shit-kicker sexiness”; The Guardian said A Star Is Born provides “dilithium crystals of pure melodrama”; and Entertainment Weekly praised Gaga for her “human-scale performance” (?) and “real-girl vulnerability.” Well, those are positive! The reviews are a promising sign that A Star Is Born is not as bizarre as certain shots from the meme-able trailer implied.<doc-sep>We’ve been hearing rumors that Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga‘s update of A Star Is Born is something special for a while now, but those rumors mostly came without clarifying details such as who was saying it and how they actually got to see some sort of preview of the film. Well, Warner Bros. has reportedly screened the picture for the first time for an outside audience, and the reaction was just as phenomenal as all those rumors would have you believe. According to Deadline, the studio screened the movie, which marks Cooper’s directorial debut, for exhibitors (i.e., movie theater chain execs) at the Dolby Screening Room in Los Angeles yesterday. “Reaction from top exhibs was through the roof, at least those I heard from,” reports Deadline. “One major theater owner predicted Oscar nominations across the board including Picture, Director, Actor and Actress, and big box office when it opens October 5.” Another exec agreed with the assessment while also praising the sound design (so there’s that). It’s the fourth time Hollywood has made a film with the title and basic premise, and the first since 1976. That version’s star, Barbra Streisand, has also claimed to have seen “parts” of it. “I’m really proud of him,” she’s said of Cooper. “He did a great job on this film.” Finally, we have some concrete evidence that there are indeed actual people out there who have seen the movie and thoroughly enjoyed it, and not just whispers emanating from the Hollywood ethers. What’s more is that Deadline is reporting that A Star Is Born may have its official world debut on August 31st at the Venice Film Festival. While the feature would premiere outside of competition, Venice is still a major hotspot for premiering potential Oscar-worthy films. Last year alone, both The Shape of Water and Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri premiered there. Still, most of us will have to wait until the official October 5th wide release to see it for ourselves. Related: A Star Is Born Trailer: The Lady Gaga Oscar Buzz Could Be Real<doc-sep>
For all the reasons that a fourth iteration of “A Star Is Born” — fifth, if you count the 1932 drama “What Price Hollywood?” whose DNA is in every “Star” — shouldn’t and wouldn’t work in 2018, it’s an extraordinary surprise that this new version packs such a wallop. This is “A Star Is Born” for people who never saw a previous version, for people who love any of the previous versions, and even for those who think the property is moth-eaten and old-fashioned. This is “A Star Is Born” that takes the characters seriously, in their passions and pathologies, their addictions and ambitions. And in an age where “Mamma Mia” and “The Greatest Showman” pass as hit musicals, it’s an exciting reminder of what the genre can be. You know this story, but you don’t this story, at least not the way that screenwriters Eric Roth, Will Fetters and Cooper are telling it: Jackson Maine (Cooper) is a roots-rock icon whose personal life is falling apart from too many pills, too much booze, and too fraught a relationship with his brother and minder Bobby (Sam Elliott). (The fact that Cooper’s speaking voice as Jackson seems to impersonate Elliott’s is distracting at first, but it later becomes a plot point.) Watch Video: Bradley Cooper Sings With Lady Gaga in First 'A Star Is Born' Trailer After a gig, Jackson heads to the first bar he can find, which happens to be a drag joint. He’s blown away by Ally (Lady Gaga), the one performer in the club who doesn’t lip-sync, belting out a heartfelt “La vie en rose” that’s more Piaf than Grace Jones. The two get to know each other on a bar-crawl: She punches a cop who violates Jackson’s personal space, he takes her to an all-night grocery store to get frozen peas for her swollen knuckles, she regales him in the parking lot with a song she’s working on. The next night, she finds herself on stage with Jackson, who has worked her fragment into a full song, and wouldn’t you know it: A star is born. But her climb is mirrored by Jackson’s descent, and not even her abiding, clear-eyed love (Ally may be the least enabler-y of the “Star Is Born” heroines) is going to be enough to save him from his own abyss. Over the years, “A Star Is Born” has been a Hollywood story (the 1937 version starring Janet Gaynor and Fredric March), a Hollywood musical (1954, Judy Garland and James Mason), and a rock musical (1976, Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson). This new version hews closest to the plot of the most recent remake, but there are bits of the others scattered in as well. (When Ally talks about being rejected because of her nose, that’s not just a Streisand shout-out; Garland’s character is told by the studio makeup men that “[her] nose is all wrong.”) But throughout the course of the film, Cooper goes out of his way to update, change or at least reconsider what we expect as the plot beats of the story. Jackson does embarrass Ally at an awards ceremony, yes, but not in the exact way his predecessors do. We don’t have to see an on-the-decline Jackson screw up a corporate gig; the lead-in to the scene tells us exactly what’s going to happen, and we can fill in the rest ourselves. Kudos to the sound designers as well; “A Star Is Born” is that rare film to acknowledge that a rock concert sounds different to the people onstage than it does to the ones in the audience. Cooper and Lady Gaga are dynamite together; this is a story that lives and dies by the central relationship and the instant chemistry that must blossom between them, and these two have it in spades. The musical numbers take immediately catchy songs and present them in an electrifying way; I rate Garland’s performance of “The Man That Got Away” as one of the all-time great musical performances on celluloid, so I mean it as high praise when I say that while none of the numbers in this version surpasses that moment, some of them come shockingly close. The film’s rightful concentration on its central couple, by necessity, takes focus away from its ensemble; if the trailer has you thinking Dave Chappelle plays a major character, expect otherwise.