A Star is Born – 2 stars

Starts out strong, a big, sweeping saga, great chemistry, starry and charming. There is even a real connection on stage.  Twenty minutes in, I thought I was in for a treat, and I was enthused to see an old fashioned big star Hollywood love story instead of a tired rom-com with an ugly dude, snark and irony

And then it just drags, with nothing occurring you don’t expect to occur, and what you do expect is very humdrum in the way it occurs.  Lady Gaga is not godawful but she is not good.  She is too raw, too one-note, and has no real feel for the moment, just doe-eyed insistence.  Bradley Cooper is effective as a haunted guy in a stupor with the biggest Daddy issue ever, but it ain’t heavy lifting, just a lot of looking down and slurring.

As the relationship goes longer, you realize, not only are they banal, but so are their circumstances.  She’s a bit of a petulant dummy and he’s an underdeveloped weakling.  One would think the glitzy world they inhabit would be treacherous and exciting, loaded with landmines and seductions.   One would be wrong.  They spend most of the time in bathrooms or in front of dining room or coffee tables, warbling on about nothing.

When not boring, the script is just a jumble of cliche’.  They have the same damn argument and Gaga gets worse as it goes on, more Snooki than Streisand.

It is also poorly edited. Scenes just abruptly and jarringly end. There is no flow.

This is not a good movie. It was good to see Andrew Dice Clay (as her father), though.