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A Star is Born (2018)

The problem with copy-paste remakes

A veteran musician in the dawn of his career falls for a regular girl with incredible talent, leading her to stardom and their romance to disaster

In a decade that has marked the film industry for being the less original and the most reiterative  - full of remakes, reboots and adaptations -, it didn’t come as a surprise that the 30s classic, later a 50s classic and even later a 70s classic A Star is Born was going to be remade. Once more.

When most films coming to cinemas are in some way an adaptation from something previous, a remake is hardly news. The third remake of the same story? A bit more. We’ve seen it done with book adaptations (how many Robin Hoods, Pride and Prejudices or Wuthering Heights have been made?) and with classic fairy tales, but it’s much less often that an original film gets remade into oblivion. It’s difficult to believe the fourth version of a film can bring something new to the table, but based on the raving reviews, you’d think Bradley Cooper’s version has done it. Not so fast.

As all the adaptations, Cooper’s film keeps the concept, storyline and ending of the original. As Frank Pierson’s 1976 adaptation, it changes the characters’ career path from acting to music. Other than the update to contemporary times, the film doesn’t do much to shed new light on the classic story. And, while that isn’t a problem, it just makes for a film that has little to say.

Imagine this. A regular girl with incredible talent that has given up on her dreams. An established star that is struggling with life and seeing how, slowly, he becomes irrelevant. They meet. She is a breath of fresh air for him. He is the only one able to recognise her talent and show it to the world. And while they indulge in passionate romance, she rises to fame and ultimately overshadows him. It’s a good story. But it isn’t an original one. And after a few remakes, it’s difficult to imagine why a director would choose it for their directorial debut if they have nothing new to say.

I struggle to find why so many people are fascinated by this film. But the different iterations of the story have been very popular over the years, so maybe it’s just that it’s an emotional story that people easily connect to. This is not to say the film is bad in any way. This is a perfectly well-made film. A perfectly well-made film that has absolutely nothing to say. Cooper’s first director gig shows some good potential, bringing a nice performance from Lady Gaga and showing incredible chemistry between the main characters. There’s some powerful moments, which are well enough shot. There’s also a few moments where Gaga’s and Cooper’s characters are just a couple, having little talks that lead nowhere but feel natural, unscripted. That is difficult to achieve. And there’s one beautiful song, Shallow, which will definitely be a contender in the upcoming awards race.

Maybe people are impressed that Cooper can act AND direct (although I wouldn’t say he’s one of the leading actors in his generations, save a few selected performances). Maybe people are impressed Gaga can sing AND act (she can, and pretty well, although the talk about a Best Actress nod feels greatly exaggerated, but that’s what happens when someone shows a person can have more than one talent). But other than people showing an unexpected (or previously unknown) skill, this film isn’t outstanding in any way.

At the end of the day, this film could have been so much more. It connects in no way to its time, to its context. It’s just a beautiful film about a struggling couple. But seeing two white straight people struggling with their relationship and their lives for two hours and fifteen minutes is far from what I expect from such a critically acclaimed film. This film has no self-awareness. It’s very white, very straight, and very average. It has the mandatory black supporting characters, but they’re kept strictly secondary as it’s Hollywood rule (or it was, back in the 90s and early 00s). But there’s nothing special about it. Because, even if it’s well done, it has been well done three other times. And, when you copy or take inspiration from something, the least you can do is try to improve it in some way, to bring something else out of it. Instead, this is just another example of how Hollywood’s mediocrity is praised for doing the bare minimum.