Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper shine in the Euphoric "A star is born"

When we saw Lady Gaga for the first time in "A star is born," she is in a washroom, throwing her boyfriend into work. She hangs up the phone and rushes screaming, throwing her torso to the ground with anguish before launching two furious words in the sky: "Fucking men!

Of course, it's not really Gaga who does that. Ally, the waitress who lives with her rowdy father (Andrew Dice Clay) and is under the orders of her demanding boss (Greg Grunberg). She has Gaga's manners and Gaga's contralto, but Ally is a distinct creation – a raw pop star who walks through the baggage that any Gaga-sized pop star brings to a screen role. Gaga, who makes her film debut, is the real deal, not just because she takes the opportunity to shout. Bradley Cooper, another improbable force, gave life to the film – it's his debut as a director, and he's playing his interest – but "A Star Is Born" is Gaga's opus.

Hollywood has cherished this romantic tragedy since the original Technicolor of 1937. Over the years, her commentary on the trials of fame and the tribulations that women experience at the hands of the male egos has become increasingly incisive, even though A Star Is Born "is far more than a mere charge of" fucking men ". Ally is the latest update on a role that requires a mega-famous and mega-talented celebrity, someone who already knows the prying eye: Judy Garland as an actress in the first remake (1954), Barbra Streisand as a rock star in the second (1976) and now Gaga as a cabaret singer, too nervous to interpret her own folk songs, she accepts the sensual mold of the pop-diva, with a job orange-blonde dye, oversized billboards and a dance bop asks, "Why are you so good in these jeans? / Why are you coming around me with an ass like that?

It's not your simple "A star is born". This is an important criticism of the machinery that turns talent into marketing campaigns and the fragile pride that makes the audience cheers both overwhelming and addictive. Moreover, it is an imposing plebiscite that rests on its foundations but is transcendent in its execution – words that I never imagined apply to the inauguration of the director of "American Sniper".

Before we see the torch in Ally's bathroom, the film opens on a pest of Jackson Maine (Cooper) with stuffed hair and whiskey at an outdoor concert. The camera presses Jackson as if it were his dance partner, chasing him as he stumbled to the microphone and ripped a guitar solo. When he turns to the spectators, the panorama adopts a fisheye dimension, immediately plunging into Jackson's psyche to reveal a man who barely records his environment. Life has become blurred.

But his world honed later in the night when, desperate to have another drink, he wobbles in a gay bar and focuses on the laser only when Ally takes the stage for a cover "La Vie en Rose". During the final note, she turns to him and the scene slows a brief second, the projector bathing the face of Ally in a velvety glow. Invaded by his voice and his charisma, he convinces her to join him for a drink and begins a chronicle of cursed lovers, one rising and the other falling.

When Garland and Streisand titled "A star is born", their respective relationships with the most amazing men who knew their talents developed with a clip that did not qualify. But Cooper, who co-wrote the script with Eric Roth ("Forrest Gump") and Will Fetters ("The Lucky One"), gives Ally and Jackson more time to mature as tightly-contoured characters. Jackson may be struck by the beauty of Ally – a point the film stresses to thwart the men who told Ally that she is not attractive enough to be famous – but he's also caught up with her writing, his family history and his company.

When he falls in love with a ballad that she wrote titled "Shallow," Jackson forces her to play at her show. Ally refuses at first, then, on hearing her play the opening chords, she wants to rush on stage. By grabbing the microphone, the same red varnish that marked his face when returning from "La Vie en Rose". The world disappears and Ally lands when we all want it: this sudden flash when the constellations line up and the universe opens. Finally, the paradise she stopped waiting for found.

For Ally, this paradise gives a contract with Interscope Records. Jackson wanted to show his talent, but can he handle the competition with him too? From there, "A Star Is Born" becomes a tussle between picturesque devotion and bitter reality. As the producer of Ally (Rafi Gavron) turns her into a glamorous queen, her fame soars. Meanwhile, Jackson is relegated to the sidelines of the industry, and the cycles of dependence and loss that haunt him for a long time become unbearable, even as he does everything in his power to honor his commitment to Ally.

If you've seen another "Star Is Born," you know how the rest is going. What may surprise you is how much an emotional and aesthetic treat was designed by Cooper.

Gaga brings a breathtaking naturalism to the role that enhances the courage of Ally's working class while showing its natural place on the glittering scene of the world. In a sense, they could not be on the vampy "American Horror Story: Hotel," Gaga's eyes are filled with fervor. She takes her environment as if she was experiencing them for the first time. While Jackson goes down in her addictions, she wears mistrust on her face like a mask that she can not hide. Her delivery is so infectious that she is shocking – she is constantly looking for the right words, or springs with just good impulsiveness, or savoring the spotlight with enough amazement. Gaga also has close relationships with the film's actors, including Clay, Anthony Ramos (who plays the role of BFF), an excellent Sam Elliott (who plays Jackson's long-time manager) and Dave Chappelle (who plays the friend). from Jackson). At each new meeting, we can feel it adapt to its decor in real time, whether to savor it or regret it.

And Cooper. Oh, Bradley Cooper. I rarely get in touch with him as an actor, and I wonder now how I've been wrong all the time. Whether speaking or singing, he plunges into his lower register to produce a graying modulation that announces the life and pressure of Jackson. In another life, Cooper could have been a rock star. He certainly chases it. In his hands, "A Star Is Born" is much more than a tired tale about a man who reinforces a woman's career – it's a passionate one-on-one conversation about the two trends of aspiration and affection, notions that are not always clear.

Cooper was wise enough to recruit as director of photography the talented Matthew Libatic, whose soft lights and traveling camera work made Darren Aronofksy's films so dynamic, namely "Black Swan" and "Mother! impulse. They perfectly emphasize the ultimate joy of the film: music. Composed by Gaga and rocker Lukas Nelson (the son of Willie), which confirms the flair of the central couple, this is what confirms the tone of the central couple. This makes them all the more sympathetic because we are attached to their gifts and their minds.

Sometimes, "A Star Is Born" stands in Jackson's perspective when Ally would be more interesting. He can not help but indulge in his movie star paradox. How is Jackson, a long-time alcoholic who seems indifferent to fitness, so damned? And do we really have to believe that Gaga, even in her less make-up moments, is not an almost perfect Venus? But of course, we're going to play with the inevitable Hollywood excesses if that translates into something so exquisite, so affecting, so resplendent. Bring your hankies there will be tears.

"Are not you tired of trying to fill that void?" Ally sings in an anthem. The question replaces the place of this film in the current Hollywood canon, where studios avoid projects without crosses or capes. That's what is often missing from our modern movie scene: clever showboats with dimensional characters and Exuberant entertainment. "A star is born" fills a void then some. We are lucky to have it.

"A star is born" opens its doors on October 5th.