Critics reviews

After three previous versions of A Star Is Born, this one is a hall of mirrors set at a flattering angle toward contemporary media, which is itself a circle of mirrors. Stating that this is “far from the shallow” does not make it true.

Yes, A Star is Born may not offer many twists and turns to a story that’s largely stayed intact since the 1930s, but it remains a heartfelt, assured rendition, with an eponymous star who never ceases to amaze.

It's an excruciating and humorous look at the world of teenagers now, "performing" their perfect selves on Instagram, but it's also timeless. Middle school is middle school, no matter the generation; it's the worst stage and it lasts forever.

You can’t cheat when you sing. You are either on key or you’re off. There is no subterfuge. The same goes with romance. Watching “A Star Is Born,” I felt I had just witnessed a pure act of cinema where life and a movie’s very own central subject were mirroring themselves through a superb love story. A man inviting a woman into his world.

It took Bradley Cooper to give Bradley Cooper his greatest role. A Star is Born is a phenomenally entertaining and moving film, in part because it understands the dynamic of stardom.

It’s an emotional blockbuster, visually grand, and, within the logic of its world, meaningful gestures undertaken by larger-than-life characters—a single tear trailing down Ally’s face, Maine’s finger tracing the outline of her strong nose, Ally cupping Maine’s cheek—take on a duality that Gaga’s skills are exactly made for.

This is A Star Is Born for the American Idol generation, a movie so out of touch with the artistic expression of universal feelings (what was formerly the pride of entertainment adepts) that it winds up simply promoting the present-day system of showbiz crudeness.

Soon those little jabs of pleasure give way to something less tingly, safer: nods of admiration. Torquing Susan Sontag’s definition of camp as “seriousness that fails,” I think of Cooper’s movie as seriousness that succeeds, but perhaps too well or too cleanly.

The main love story in the new version of “A Star Is Born” is the one between Bradley Cooper the director and Bradley Cooper the actor. Few recent movies come to mind in which filmmakers give themselves as many lingering, emotion-milking closeups. . . . Fortunately, there’s much more to this remake, which is more engaging and affecting over all than it is at its most self-regarding moments.

In comparison to the '76 version, the film benefits from the fact that Cooper has a much greater range, both vocally and as an actor, than the mumbling, shambolic Kristofferson. But the 2018 script is also sharper because it's more grounded in the dynamics of labor.

The film pales in comparison to Cukor’s masterpiece (but then, what showbiz melodrama doesn’t?), in large part because Cooper doesn’t convey the repressed self-loathing that made James Mason so poignant in the role. Pop singer Lady Gaga is quite good as the wife, however; she subtly and convincingly manages the character’s transformation from vulnerable ingenue to self-confident celebrity.

In a film so increasingly obsessed with questions around maintaining authenticity in show business, its most authentic figure remains, contradictorily, its most untouchable star.