Personally, my biggest problem with this movie was that initially I could only see Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga. Who I needed to see was Jack and Ally. When the movie started, I began to get Jack as a character, the nooses on the billboard as he coughed and drank from his limo, just looking for any bar to satisfy his addiction. But then the movie switched to Ally, who I guess sucks at her job and gets yelled at, but all I see is Lady Gaga and knowing that she is the star "to be born" and knowing she's already a huge musical star, I found it a little hard to get past to just see her as "Ally - no name girl going no where in life that happens to strike gold". Then for her to punch the guy in the bar... I know it was needed to move the story along and for her and Jack to bond outside the supermarket, but it just felt out of character for her from the little I knew about her. Is she a hot head all the time? Is she potentially violent? Who is this girl? All I know is that she's Lady Gaga, but I'm supposed to see her as Ally and it's not quite jelling with me yet. (Maybe it's probably because she's not a great actress, super talented musically, but not an actor.)
So things start to happen for Ally very fast and I like that the movie picked up steam here as she needed to decide whether to go for it or just stay at her job. We begin to get more love story, but we're reminded that Jack is broken, losing his hearing, alcoholic, doesn't get along with his brother so my focus is caring about him and not Ally at this point. I was surprised when Shallow came so soon in the movie, as I thought it would be the big number later, but it was perfectly placed. Then my mind started to leave the movie world and enter the logical world as Allly began to rise from a nobody to a somebody and she's writing music with Jack and touring on Jack's tour, what happens to her if her and Jack break up? Who owns the music they wrote? Does Jack? Would Ally just fade away? I started to become concerned with her and then shortly after questioning that, in walks in new character - ass hole music producer. Good, this is what my logical brain needed.
So as Ally's star burns brighter, Jack's brother quits his tour, and Jack and Ally somehow continue to work professionally and personally, but then they start to take different paths musically. Ally is shown to have a few flaws with firing her dancers and butting heads with her producer, but then eventually listens. She continues to rise and Jack continues to fall, and I thought it was a great contrast in telling the story.
I thought the movie was shot very well and while I didn't initially get sucked in, it wasn't until the last 45 minutes or so that I really cared about Jack and Ally and I saw the characters and not the actors. I don't know if it was just me, but I was entertained and intrigued the whole time so I'd definitely recommend it.
