Film review by Papp Marcell

Doesn’t it get boring after the fourth time?

A Star Is Born with Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper is the fourth adaptation of this story in Hollywood. The first one was made in 1937, the second in 1954, and the third in 1976. The movies always tried to capture the current trends of the acting or music industry. The plot stayed the same in all of the four movies, an alcoholic and famous artist is on the edge of total breakdown, but he meets a young talented woman and he helps her make her dream come true, to be  a big star.

I think the most frequently asked question about this movie is whether the already known ending makes the film boring. From my perspective it does not, and one of the main reason why I think this is the time gap between the movies. Each film has or had its own audience and the films always represent the exact pop-culture of their time. The directors also play a big role, because we see the interpretation of the main story through their eyes, so they have to work to create something new and independent to entertain the spectator.

Bradley Cooper had to work extra hard, because this film was his debut as a director, but fortunately the critics and the audience equally loved it. Lady Gaga is a talented singer and now we know she can act brilliantly as well. Cooper does his very best at capturing the emotions and the look of a depressed celebrity. The music is well written and always has a message; you never feel that it is out of context. The sets are well made, but sometimes when a concert is shown it has a cheap feeling; you can sense that it’s not in a real stadium and only the first lines are filled with people. This is probably caused by the low budget. For a film with big names like this the budget of 40 million dollars sounds really small.

The film touches a lot of relevant problems like alcoholism, the importance of money in our life, or what family means. But the most important is the idea that the only way we can make space for new things is by getting rid of the old ones.