A Star is Born Parent Guide

Bradley Cooper’s directorial debut, A Star is Born, is the third adaptation of a 1937 film of the same name. It features Lady Gaga as Ally, a young waitress aspiring to be a singer. Her world is turned upside down when she meets Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper), a country rock singer with a drinking problem. Stumbling into a drag bar for more booze, Jackson is struck by her rendition of “La Vie en Rose” From there, the two abscond to another bar, and following a minor fight, to a grocery store where Jackson finds ice for Ally’s hand. She sings for him again, and he tells her to come to his show the following night. With a little encouragement, she winds up singing in front of a sold-out crowd. What follows is a story tracking the ups and downs of the relationship between these two artists, the commercial pressure of the music industry, and the heart-breaking dangers of drug and alcohol abuse.

Unfortunately, this film is loaded with content concerns in areas of alcohol abuse, language, and sex. Profanity in the film is near-constant with 100 sexual expletives and another 40 curse words, providing at least one crude or profane word per minute. Sexual content includes a couple having intercourse (a shadowed set reduces the clarity of the image), blurred full frontal female nudity, and a couple bathing together with a side view of a woman’s breast, along with other less explicit moments. The use and abuse of drugs and alcohol are a larger concern but are portrayed extremely negatively and the consequences for using both are dire. Characters are shown benefitting from rehabilitation, and it is clearly demonstrated that neither drugs nor alcohol are beneficial to any character’s creativity or happiness. This raises an interesting dilemma for parents of older teens who want to see A Star Is Born: can a film loaded with negative content be a valuable experience for viewers if the story illustrates the heartbreaking consequences of poor life choices?

Those who choose to see this picture will find that it is about 30 minutes too long with uneven pacing and some serious drag in the second act. This is made much more bearable by hard-hitting and surprisingly emotional performances from Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Cooper has clearly put in a lot of time and effort into the musical aspects of his role and transforms quite convincingly into a troubled musician. Gaga, already an accomplished vocalist, does excellent work as a strong, charismatic young singer with a very complex emotional life. Amongst the supporting cast, Sam Elliot stands out as Cooper’s older brother, and helps to ground these larger than life characters.

If the tearful sniffling of the women in the seats behind me were any indication, the movie manages to hit its emotional marks, especially with the final song before the credits. While this does scream “Oscar-bait”, it manages a certain authenticity, which I think is due to Bradley Cooper’s earnest performance. Some of the content, particularly the language and sex, completely rule this out as a family film. Adults who want to enjoy the heady drama of this retold tale should be prepared for a star that doesn’t shine quite as brightly as it otherwise could have.