Theatrical Release Poster
I knew I wanted to see this movie the moment I heard Bradley Cooper was singing (Which we now have learned is not true…oh Hollywood 🤦🏻♂️) and that Lady Gaga was proving she could act. My mom calls it the triple threat of singing, dancing and acting. I loved Cooper’s deep country drawl. Although I’m from Arizona and I can’t say it’s a southwest thing. Maybe they thought using Texas was too cliché.
When I heard the duet on the previews I was enamored. Could this soundtrack be my next Greatest Showman?
The story is quick to jump to its serendipitous encounter of a famous somebody running into a hopeful nobody. You get the character roles quickly, Cooper is an alcoholic and drug addict and Gaga is his muse. It doesn’t take her long to jump into his arms and get out into the spotlight.
Everything is predictable, there is a conflict of managers and the comparison of talent. He has daddy issues and she doesn’t have issues, accept she wants to be herself. Girls want guys to change and guys want girls to stay the same.
The only unpredictable thing that my wife called in the middle of the movie would be if Cooper died. We thought he would O.D. However the writers, in there last attempt to try and come across as not being predictable decided to have him hang himself, which was foreshadowed earlier but I didn’t think it would end that way. It’s the easy way out. Not the suicide but for the writers and the character development.
How do we resolve the addicted rock star dilemma? We kill him off? How? He kills himself because, well why not? We need to put a spin on the ending so that we feel sorry for him and his apparently miserable life.
If this were based of a real story, I would have a different tune. However, since it is made up, I find it a mockery or those who do kill themselves and those who fight everyday to stay alive.
Here are my 3 biggest qualms with Cooper’s downfall.
1) He sought therapy…so is it pointless?
2) He didn’t lose anything, no clear motive as to why, accept jealous maybe? That’s sad that he couldn’t be happy for his wife and the woman he made famous.
3) The movie glosses over the ramifications of suicide. She wrote a song and moved on and life is back to normal?! Really, that’s all that families of suicide deal with?!
Why couldn’t he have he been killed by driving drunk, that would have at least connected the consequences of him drinking.
Was it to focus on the illness of people who are suicidal? It did a poor job of that.
He didn’t lose his career…they implied his hearing was bad? Was it his embarrassment of the Grammys? The movie didn’t show that it had a negative impact on his career.
I think it was an easy out for the writers to try and tug at a heart string that was a very shallow jab. I could honestly care less that he hung himself because it was a made up movie and there was not enough conflict either real or perceived to warrant that ending. Was it their love I should have mourned? She seemed to just accept his choice, knew he was sick and moved on.
It seemed to have been haphazardly thrown in, to no avail. I liked his character, he hadn’t lost his talent, ability or influence. Movies are supposed to tell a story that connects dots that make logical and emotional connections and this one missed those brain synapsis. The movie would have been better had he just died a different way.
It took away from the real focus of the movie which was telling a story in your music, not just the music itself. Maybe he was the phony all along because she was being her true self?! I don’t know but I could still ponder all of it, without the suicide. It wasn’t deep, it was cheap.
In Truth & Love
Matthew J. Diaz
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