Virtuoso debut performances from Lady Gaga (in her first feature film role) and Bradley Cooper (writer-director as well as actor) lift this remake beyond the humdrum into, well, star-making territory. Cooper is a surprisingly competent singer, but it’s Gaga who powers the 3 showstoppers “Shallow”, “Always Remember Us This Way”, and “I’ll Never Love Again”. Expect multiple Oscar nominations.

The well-trodden story follows jaded country rocker Jackson (Cooper) who stumbles upon ingenue Ally (Gaga), a talented yet struggling singer-songwriter, and gives her her first big break while they fall in love. In the second half, tragedy ensues.

What brings the two acts together is the birth metaphor applied to stardom (subtly hinted at by the film’s title 😉 ). The initial meet-cute and stand-out “Shallow” scene (more analysis below) are the consummation and conception: fun, intoxicating, but only the beginning for a viral celebrity. To become a true star, Cooper’s script tells us, she needs to be authentic and “have something to say”, and while she has had some hardship, she has not endured real heartbreak and pain, as we discover Jackson has since an early age. So the second half, while not light-heartedly fun, are the necessary pregnancy and labor pangs leading up to the last scene, when she emerges, the star finally born, in great tear-jerking sorrow but also triumph and authenticity.

In other words, the Academy’s going to be all over this thing like a rash since it props up the legend of magical Hollywood stardom. (Though in a meta mention in the script, Ally’s authenticity is denoted by whether her hair is artificially colored, and Gaga gently digs at her own persona’s platinum locks. Though if fake blonde implies inauthenticity, but Lady Gaga (née Stefani Germanotta) is a bona fide star, then that exposes the lie Hollywood tells itself about stardom … Pretty clever, Bradley!)

There’s a few problems the plot glosses over (e.g. Jackson and Ally cater to two different musical genres and audience generations, so it doesn’t quite gel that Jackson’s star fades to black as Ally’s rises), but these are more than made up for by the excellent acting, directing and music. Highly recommended

** spoiler alerts **

For those who’ve seen it, let’s wax lyrical about “Shallow” and why the scene and song work so well:

• The lyrics foreshadow the plot and their relationship
• Musically, the song echoes the story’s trajectory: starting with Cooper’s country soul and ending with Gaga belting it out
• The first few scenes successfully set up Ally as the ingenue, so the audience is also swept up in the events, her reluctance and tentativeness, and her surprised delight when she, like the song, dives “off the deep end” at the first chorus
• As the real consummation of their relationship (underscored by the failed attempt at sex later that night), it’s a true collaboration between musical peers. She only sang the verse and chorus once in the carpark late at night, but he remembered both despite his drunkenness, added his own verse and refrain and arranged it with the band
• Cooper directs the interactions between Jackson, Ally and the band to seem realistic as the first time they are playing this together, e.g. Jackson mouthing the words at Ally to cue her in, the band members nodding at each other “See, I told you she was good”, etc.