Category: Romance

Honest Thief

Rated: MHonest Thief

Written and Directed by: Mark Williams

Produced by: Mark Williams, Myles Nestel, Tai Duncan, Craig Chapman and Jonah Loop

Production Designer: Tom Lisowski

Editor: Michael P Shawver

Music by: Mark Isham

Starring: Liam Neeson, Kate Walsh, Jeffrey Donovan, Jai Courtney, Anthony Ramos, Robert Patrick and Jasmine Cephas Jones.

‘I met a woman.’

Honest Thief is a classic formula that plays-out like a movie I felt like I’d seen before.

Set in Boston (including that Boston accent and typical dirty cops), the In-And-Out Bandit, AKA Tom Carter (Liam Neeson) has been robbing banks without leaving a trace (hence the nickname and yes, he doesn’t like it either) for eight years.

Until he meets Annie (Kate Walsh – the actress from Grey’s Anatomy.  She looks nothing like Dr. Addison Montgomery here as Annie and that’s OK.  She’s well-cast).

It’s a real meet-cute, setting the tone of the film – a romantic crime drama set to the gravitas of Liam Neeson’s deep-bass voice.

Tom wants to the do the right thing.  To build his relationship with Annie on an honest foundation (see the title), and be an, ‘Honest Thief’.

After twelve bank robberies over seven states and nine million in cash, Tom wants to turn himself in.

‘He met a woman,’ Agent Meyers (Jeffrey Donovan) explains.

‘Poor guy,’ replies Agent Baker (Robert Patrick).

The robber-turned-soft romantic overtones of this film are somewhat offset by the humour of this Agent Baker, desperately trying not to be bitter after being left with a dog (instead of a house) after his divorce.

And we get some dirty cop crime thrown in with some explosive action.

Writer and director Mark Williams (A Family Man (2016)) states, “It has the action, the thrills, car chases, guns going off, things exploding. But at the heart of it, it’s a love story, and to me that’s the most important thing.”

So, Honest Thief isn’t one of those shoot-em-up action flicks, or crime thriller.

This is more Tom proving he’s the In-And-Out bandit – an excuse to show some strategy in the film – then after being double-crossed by dirty cops, proving he might be a robber, but he’s no killer.

At one point Tom’s asked, ‘What do you want?’

‘To prove my innocence.’

Because as stated above, he’s met a woman.

It’s just not that exciting.

But the addition of Robert Patrick as Agent Baker (Robert Patrick) and his increasing affection for his fluffy companion, Tassy lifted the tone and added that extra bit of humour.

‘Poor guy.’

Hilarious.

Body Swap

Rated: not rated in AustraliaBody Swap

Directed by: Timothy Morton                

Written by: Jimmy Kustes

Produced by: Jimmy Kustes

Starring: Ella Jordan, Jimmy Kustes, Gunner Willis, Joseph Tino, Kayte Giralt, Erica Manni.

‘Pump the brakes lady. I don’t swap bodies every day.’

When Casey (Jimmy Kustes) an unemployed video gamer and highly-evolved couch potato takes the company motto to ‘be yourself’ to heart during an interview, he not only blows any chance he might have had to get the job, but the interviewer (Ella Jordan) is so incensed at his bare-faced honesty that she tries to feed his résumé to the paper shredder. As the pair jostle, Casey’s drink spills and the device short circuits, knocking them both out.

On regaining consciousness, each discovers that they have swapped into the last body in the world they would choose to live in.

Even worse, it’s a critical time in C.J.s career, she has been tasked with steering a billion dollar merger for her firm and her boss has made it clear that she is to do nothing that might jeopardise the process. Under the circumstances, C.J. feels as if she has no choice but to let the job applicant reject appear in her place while she navigates a body that can keep an M&M hidden under its boobs.

This is a gentle comedy rather than a roll around on the floor romp but, for me, there was great delight in delving into the meta-levels of this thoughtful offering. Throughout the film, interview footage of a more relaxed and socially adept C.J. and Casey, as they sit sprawled across a couch discussing the intimate mechanics of body swapping, is inserted into the flow of the narrative as if the whole thing were actually a documentary.

With this meta-level intrusion serving as an ongoing reminder, I was very conscious that each character was at once themselves inside another’s body, at the same time as they were attempting to take on the identity of the other, while never being able to fully shrug off the traits of the person they had once been.

Such a kaleidoscope of competing agendas kept my mind in a whirl. In a good way.

When C.J. and Casey swap bodies, they step into lives so far apart on the career and social spectrum that they might have been living in separate universes. Ostensibly the film is about what the two can learn about themselves on their paths to becoming less dysfunctional human beings, but this is also where this movie so nicely defies convention. Despite the strangeness of the situation, each finds themselves in an unexpectedly powerful position in their new life. C.J. knows exactly how to shower Casey’s girlfriend with romance, that is until she runs into mechanical problems, while Casey has been longing for an opportunity to unleash his gamer superpowers onto the real world and it doesn’t take him long to see the huge potential in his new corporate role as well as the possibilities of life as a lesbian.

While this indie flic might demand some effort on the part of the audience, much of the humour lies in the subtleties, there are some deliciously absurd moments with two thoroughly amusing and likable leads.

Emma

Rated: PGEmma

Directed by: Autumn de Wilde

Written by: Eleanor Catton

Based on the Book Written by: Jane Austen

Produced by: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner, Graham Broadbent, Pete Czemin

Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Johnny Flynn, Bill Nighy, Mia Goth, Miranda Hart, Josh O’Connor, Callum Turner, Rupert Graves, Gemma Whelan, Amber Anderson, Tanya Reynolds, Connor Swindells.

Love knows best.

Or, Emma (Anya Taylor-Joy) knows best.

Living in Highbury Park with her widowed father, Mr. Woodhouse (Bill Nighy), Emma spends her days indulged as she plots to match and make those around her, careful never to fall in unnecessary matrimony herself.

That’s what she tells herself and others, including the insufferable and righteous Mr. Knightly (Johnny Flynn), the brother to her new brother-in-law.  Mr. Knightly’s always on hand to point out her vanity.

Yes, Emma tells herself she doesn’t want marriage as she uses her influence to partner her new project and friend, Miss Harriet Smith (Mia Goth) with someone she thinks Harriet’s equal, the local vicar Mr. Elton (Josh O’Connor) (and not the besotted farmer Robert Martin (Connor Swindells), whom Harriet really cares for).

But underneath a cool demeanour Emma can’t stop the flutter of her heart when she hears of the return of the very handsome, Frank Churchill (Callum Turner).

Can you sense the period drama?

Based on the novel penned by Jane Austen (published in late December 1815), there’s plenty of lace and bonnets and piano forte playing and performance.

I admit, I could not have been in less of a mood to watch pomp and ceremony.

But despite my sigh of boredom at the beginning of the film, I found there was a sweetness and intrigue that I was slowly drawn into, helped along with the dry wit of Bill Nighy as Emma’s cantankerous but really warm-hearted father who considers a day at a wedding a truly awful day.

He’s always searching for that cold draft determined to flow through the house from some crack or cranny.

It’s really the comedy that saves this film, subtle, shown in a glance, a tsk, or a flummoxed, energetic jump from stair to floor.

So yes, sweet and funny with, Anya Taylor-Joy well-cast as the handsome, clever and rich Emma.

But this is a long movie (117 minutes), dragging with a yawn and watch-check in the first half hour, and then again when approaching the two-hour mark.

You’ve got to be in the mood for the period romance that is Emma – hence the release in time for a tolerable viewing on Valentine’s Day.

Bangla

Rated: MBangla

Directed by: Phaim Bhuiyan

Screenplay by: Phaim Bhuiyan, Picciarelli Vanessa

Produced by: Domenico Procacci, Annamaria Morelli

Starring: Carlotta Antonelli, Phaim Bhuiyan, Nasima Akhter

Winner of the Nastro d’Argento for Best Comedy 2019

Winner of Best First Feature, Golden Globes Italy, 2019

Italian and Bengali with English subtitles

The national language, Bengali, is the only official language of Bangladesh according to the third article of the Constitution of Bangladesh.

Phaim (Phaim Bhuiyan) is a twenty-two-year old born in Italy but his parents are still expecting him to behave like a Bangledeshi Muslim meaning: no pork, no alcohol and no sex before marriage.

So while perving at underwear adverts and trying not to look but really looking at a couple pashing on the bus, all he can do is ask, how much punishment is he in for by just thinking about getting it on before marriage?

When he meets the wild and beautiful blue-haired Asia (Carlotta Antonelli), what’s he supposed to do when kissing Asia feels like a compulsion?  Like resisting is fighting against gravity?

Yeah, OK, sounds a bit familiar, the culture clash and expected romance…But director and star, Phaim Bhuiyan has gotten the tone just right with this Italian rom-com.

Rather than dwelling on the obvious, Bangla is more about the conversations Phaim has with himself and the camera.

We also get funny moments as the film addresses Phaim living in Rome in the multiethnic Torpignattara neighbourhood, as he works as a museum steward and playing in a band.  The band, of course, playing Bangledeshi favourites.

When discussing the idea of going out with an Italian girl, his mate tells him, ‘Italian girls smell like pork.’

But in the end that feeling Phaim has means, ‘You’re in love.’

‘Cool.’

The straight-forward dialogue of Phaim and Asia when they first meet is classic.

The back-and-forth and instant connection between the two transends the two cultures because of its simplicity.

And it’s sweet seeing the two, arm-in-arm, Phaim edging away until hitting a tree because no matter how attracted he is to this Italian girl, he can’t do anything about it.

But she tries.  While he tries not to.  It works.

And the tone of the film has a lot to do with not just the writing but the spot-on editing and cut from shot to scene with Phiam firmly in control of the film without being selfish with it.

I liked it.  More than I thought I would.

More cool and sweet than romantic and funny – a classic Italian film for release as part of the Lavazza Italian Film Festival 2019.

#ItalianFF

Top End Wedding

Rated: MTop End Wedding

Directed by: Wayne Blair

Written by: Joshua Tyler and Miranda Tapsell

Based on a Concept by: Miranda Tapsell, Joshua Tyler and Glen Condie

Produced by: Rosemary Blight, Kylie du Fresne, Kate Croser

Starring: Miranda Tapsell, Gwilym Lee, Kerry Fox and Huw Higginson.

I feel like I’m glowing after watching Top End Wedding – a blushing bride?!  No, but when director Wayne Blair introduced the film he, said, ‘This is good energy.’

And I’ve got to say, I feel it.

Top End Wedding is a warm-hearted, funny movie about Lauren (Miranda Tapsell) who’s just made Associate at her law firm in Adelaide and Ned (Gwilym Lee), also a lawyer, but quits his job when he decides it’s wrong to indict a woman for stealing incontinence pads.  And then offers her a tissue as she cries on the stand.  Not for her incontinence but for her tears.

When Ned proposes, Lauren whole-heartedly says yes.

With only eleven days leave given by her ball-breaking, super-organised boss, Hampton (Kerry Fox), Lauren decides she wants to get married in Darwin.  Her home town.  Where her parents still live.

When Ned and Lauren arrive, they find:

Mum (Daffy, played by Ursula Yovich) has gone missing, leaving;

Dad (Trevor, played by Huw Higginson) a wreck and crying and hiding in the pantry, listening to music where eventually he says, ‘I can’t listen to anymore 80s chick music.’

Ned and Lauren’s relationship gets tested as the pressure of the wedding and family weighs on their shoulders.  Yet, in the end.  It’s all about coming home.

I didn’t expect to enjoy this film as much as I did.  And writer and lead Miranda Tapsell had a lot to do with the warmth and beauty of this story.

Producer, Rosemary Blight tells of Miranda wanting to do a romantic comedy: ‘I thought there’d be a whole lot more after The Sapphires and there’d be these feisty, funny Aboriginal screenplays. It didn’t happen. So I wrote it myself.’

There’s a great partnership here, between Miranda and director, Wayne Blair, both previous collaborators on the highly successful, The Sapphires (2012).  All the parts work so well.

Top End Wedding feels like a down-to-earth film but there’s a lot of sophistication going here with the timing and segue of scenes and details like all the many different tribes of Aboriginals shown on a map of Australia as the couple travel across the country.

There’s beautiful scenery shot from: Darwin to Kakadu National Park, Katherine, Nitmiluk National Park also including the people of the Tiwi Islands dancing and singing, welcoming the audience into their world, onto their land.

And the soundtrack invites you in, the score from Antony Partos using the ukulele, mandolin and acoustic guitar, and pitched down acoustic guitar so it feels like you’ve been invited to sit around a camp fire.

But it’s the humour that got me – where a lump of sugar is dropped in a cup of tea despite the indecisiveness of an Englishman: do I or don’t I want that lump of sugar?  Drop.

The bumbling Brit does OK: there’s nothing wrong with his ‘gum nuts’.

One of my favourite scenes is the golden light held in the air of a white wooden hall, ceiling fans slowly rotating high overhead as an 80s love song plays by a boy she hasn’t met, yet…

See, GLOWING.

What a gorgeous film.  Loved it.

Long Shot

Rated: MLong Shot

Directed by: Jonathan Levine

Screenplay by: Dan Sterling and Liz Hannah

Story by: Dan Sterling

Produced by: Charlize Theron, p.g.a., A.J. Dix, p.g.a., Beth Kono, p.g.a., Evan Goldberg, p.g.a., Seth Rogen, p.g.a., James Weaver, p.g.a.

Starring: Charlize Theron, Seth Rogen, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Andy Serkis, June Diane Raphael, with Bob Odenkirk, and Alexander Skarsgård.

Fred Flarsky (Seth Rogen) has been in love with Charlotte Field (Charlize Theron) since he was twelve years old.

Before she was Secretary of State, Charlotte was Fred Flarsky’s baby sitter.

They’ve both grown up since Charlotte wanted to save the planet and become School President; now, she’s campaigning to save the planet and become President of the United States.

Fred, with his gonzo journalistic style has just lost his job.  He needs cheering up.  Best friend Lance (O’Shea Jackson Jr.) knows what he needs: a classy cocktail party featuring Boys To Men as the entertainment.

Suited-up in teal windbreaker (that he seems to have an attachment to) and tapered cargo pants, Fred happens to meet up with his crush, the now beautiful and powerful Charlotte.

She remembers him.  She likes his writing.  She decides (against the opinion of her Chief of Staff, Maggi (June Diane Raphael)) to hire Fred as her speech writer.

Long Shot is a rom-com so of course it’s the unlikely couple who fall for each other – the difference in this rom-com, the odd-couple fall for each other while on the campaign trail.

There’s this mix of Charlotte living the high life as a politician and the comedy of Seth Rogan as Fred, the goofy but still witty guy able to write a good speech while reminding Charlotte of her young self: the idealist.

‘I am not nuking a tsunami,’ she states.

Most of the time, the film’s a silly bit of fluff.

There’s some classic comedy with Fred wearing an outfit that looks like, ‘Captain Crunch’s Grindr date.’  But then the film gets romantic, the shift from comedy to romance obvious when the soundtrack starts with, ‘One way.  Or another.  I’m gonna git ya, git, ya, git, ya…’

It didn’t quite gel right for me.

Charlize Theron as Charlotte is gorgeous in this film – her allure, as always, cool and controlled.

Sure, Fred breaks down this barrier as part of the romance, getting the Secretary of State to chill out, get wasted and fall in love.

And we get an appearance from Alexander Skarsgård (I’m really becoming a fan of this guy) showing his comic genius as the Canadian Prime Minister.

But the mix of romance and politics wasn’t always a success.

Gloria Bell

Rated: MGloria Bell

Director: Sebastián Lelio

Story by: Gonzalo Maza

Screenplay by: Alice Johnson Boher, Sebastián Lelio

Produced by: Juan de Dios Larraín, Pablo Larraín, Sebastián Lello

Starring: Julianne Moore, John Turturro, Michael Cera, Brad Garrett, Sean Astin, Jeanne Tripplehorn, and Rita Wilson.

‘When the world ends, I hope I go down dancing.’

Gloria Bell (Juilanne Moore) is divorced with two grown children, Peter (Michael Cera) and Anne (Caren Pistorius).

She likes to go out dancing, disco dancing; she sings while driving her car; she worries about her son and grandchild, left by a partner who’s gone to find herself.

Everyone around her is struggling with something in their lives: work-buddy Melinda (Barbara Sukowa) realising she hasn’t saved enough money to retire, an upstairs neighbour having a breakdown, yelling incoherently.  But Gloria dances.

When she meets Arnold (John Turturro) he asks her, ‘Are you always this happy?’  And she smiles because she likes him.

It’s a later-in-life romance with all the baggage that goes with it.

Arnold is the perfect part for John Turturro, those soulful eyes drawing Gloria in.

And Julian Moore surprises with her candour in her role as Julia – I’ve never seen her in a part with nudity.

The nudity of Gloria counts, to add to her exposure; her vulnerability.

There’s authenticity in the frailty and strength of Gloria, making her choices relatable.

I loved seeing her little rebellions – the drinking, the smoking; the risk.  These are the moments that humanise the ex-wife and mother into an individual trying to make something for herself in life.

Gloria Bell isn’t one of those rom-com, uplifting romance films. This is a realistic portrayal of a beautiful, middle-aged woman that left me with an overriding feeling of sadness.

Sure, the soundtrack was all about the 80s and disco music like Gloria (Laura Branigan) and Total Eclipse of the Heart (Bonnie Tyler).  But it was Gloria’s son playing the Prelude in D Minor by J. S. Bach that set the tone.

Life is tough.  Love is hard.  People are hard.  But we keep going.

Gloria keeps going.

She keeps being true to herself even if it means giving into that quiet desperation.  She accepts it and struggles through.

That’s what makes the film so sad.

Five Feet Apart

Rated: MFive Feet Apart

Directed by: Justin Baldoni

Written by: Justin Baldoni & Tobias Iaconis

Produced by: Cathy Shulman, Justin Baldoni

Starring: Haley Lu Richardson, Cole Sprouse, Moises Arias, Kimberly Hébert Gregory, Paraminder Nagra, Claire Forlani.

Based on the fact people suffering from cystic fibrosis can’t touch each other because of risk of contamination, transference of bacteria; infection, Five Feet Apart is a romance between two teens: cute-as-a-button Stella (Haley Lu Richardson), who deals with her illness by controlling everything in her environment; and rebel, Will (Cole Sprouse) who now carries the bacteria strain Burkholderia cepacia, or B. cepacia for short, making any chance of lung transplant impossible.

Added to a bleak future, the bacteria’s easily transferred by casual contact, so the CF sufferers must stay six feet apart.

You’ll find out why the film’s named Five Feet Apart if you decide to expose yourself, not to the bacteria, but a film made specifically to make you cry, using every trick in the book.

Writer and director Justin Baldoni came up with the idea of this romance while shooting his 2012 series My Last Days.

While filming an episode about CF he met Claire Wineland, “One day I asked Claire if she’d ever dated anybody with CF. Claire kind of looked at me like I was stupid.

She said, ‘of course not’

And I said, ‘wait, why not?’

That’s when she explained that people living with CF can’t get closer than six feet because they could pass on dangerous bacteria to people with CF.

Once she said that, I had so many reactions,” he recalls.

Five Feet Apart is set in a hospital following CF sufferers while they contemplate their mortality.  Even with a lung transplant, the shelf-life of the new lungs are five years, while waiting to die, drowning in their own secretions.

Walking into this film, I wondered if I was going to get sucky, cheesy, teary or romantic.  None of these options was particularly appealing.

And I have to say the film is all the above.

My God, people were sobbing in the cinema.

I personally couldn’t wait until it was over.

If you like a romance, then the idea of lovers falling for each other but unable to touch is a potent idea.

Forbidden fruit and all that.

And the character, Poe (Moises Arias), Stella’s best gay buddy coming out with statements about Stella’s anal-retentive behaviour helped lighten the film, a bit: ‘I know you Stella, organising a med cart is like foreplay’.

And Cole Sprouse as Will is dreamy – even with nasal tubing.

But the whole film is riddled with slow motion takes with the underlying cheesy soundtrack.

I know I know, Brian Tyler is a very famous composer (of over 70 films including Avengers: Age of Ultron, Furious 7, Iron Man 3, and Thor: The Dark World and recently Crazy Rich Asians featuring a big band jazz and romantic string score that was voted to the 2019 Oscar shortlist for Best Score…!); but it felt so contrived, to me…

Just to re-cap: Teens, sick in hospital, fall in love, but if they kiss, they will die.  All set to that teen romance music – sobbing with tubing inserted and attached to a ventilator included.

Charming

Rated: GCharming

Written and directed by: Ross Venokur

Produced by: John H. Williams

Music by: Tom Howe

Starring: Demi Lovato, Wilmer Valderrama, Sia, Ashley Tisdale, Avril Lavigne, G. E. M., Nia Vardalos, with Chris Harrison and John Cleese.

While writer and director Ross Venokur read fairy tales to his three daughters over the years, they came to realise Prince Charming gets around.  Think about it: Cinderella, Snow White, Sleeping Beauty… They’re all saved by the same guy.  They all fall for, Prince Charming.

In Charming, Venokur has turned the fairy tale around so it’s the Prince who’s cursed: there is such as thing as being too charming.  How is Prince Philippe Charming (Wilmer Valderrama) supposed to know whether it’s the curse or true love when all women are charmed by him?

Cursed by Nemeny Neverwish (Nia Vardalos), a scorned woman turned witch, Prince Charming must find true love before his twenty-first birthday to lift the curse of his charm.  If he doesn’t then all love will disappear from the kingdom.

Like his father and his grandfather, Prince Charming must complete the gauntlet; a journey of self-discovery and manhood while besting the unbeatable beast, escaping giant women cannibals, and most importantly taking a leap of faith to find his true love.

It’s only with the help of a rouge thief, Lenny while disguised as a man of the world but really Lenore Quinone (Demi Lovato), a girl who grew up on the seas, who has locked her heart away for good.  It’s only with her survival skills at the price of three fortunes in gold that the pampered, never-had-to-lift-his-charmed-finger-to-do-anything, has Charming any chance of completing the gauntlet.  Let alone find true love.

It’s lucky Lenore is immune to his charms, otherwise the quest would never have had a chance.  Nor the story.

Not that I was charmed by this film.

It was all a little pre-teen for me.  Complete with girl-band music for the soundtrack that I found difficult to believe the characters were singing.

And the story was stretched beyond believability, even for a fairy tale animation with Lenore jailed for her thievery to suddenly be offered three fortunes to get Prince Charming through the gauntlet!?

And Lenore putting on a baker’s hat was enough of a disguise to be mistaken for the short and fat baker?

And fake moustache and hat makes you look like a boy?

Well, yeah, I guess.  But not really.

I was however, charmed by details like the kingdom billboard advertising a lawnmower with a picture of a sheep and Charming offering Lenore’s partner-in-crime AKA a chirpy red bird a roasted pigeon leg.

And the animation was fluid with colours, my favourite scene when the two explorers enter an enchanted forest with vines reaching out with hands.

But the soundtrack and taking the leap-of-faith romance was directed at a younger audience who may be able to look past those stretches of narrative that made me roll my eyes because, as if!

A Star Is Born

Rated: MA Star Is Born

Directed by: Bradley Cooper

Screenplay by: Eric Roth, Bradley Cooper and Will Fetters

Based on the 1954 Screenplay by: Moss Bart and the 1976 Screenplay by John Gregory Dunne and Joan Didion and Frank Peirson

Based on a Story by: William Wellman and Robert Carson

Produced by: Bill Gerber, p. g. a., Jon Peters, Bradley Cooper, p. g. a., Todd Phillips, Lynette Howell Taylor, p. g. a.

Starring: Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper Sam Elliott, Andrew Dice Clay, Rafi Gavron, Anthony Ramos, Dave Cahppelle.

A Star Is Born is one of those country love stories because with real love comes the real tragedy of watching a star rise despite people telling her she’s ugly and the mega-star musician suffering addiction and tinnitus while losing the sense of who he is.

Add music, good music, and you’ve got more just a love story.

I didn’t go into the film expecting to like the music so much.  I’m a ‘No pop no style, I strictly roots’, kinda gal.

But all the singing was recorded live and most of the songs original and written for the film – no miming, just the real voice so you can feel it coming through the screen.

And with the opening scene of Jack (Bradley Cooper) singing “Black Eyes” with band, ‘Luckas Nelson & Promise of the Real’ I was hooked.

Sure, Jack was blitzed, but he could still sing a good tune.

Cut to Ally (Lady Gaga), a waitress, heeled boots under a toilet stall, pacing, breaking up with a ridiculous boyfriend – ‘fucking men!’ to her getting ready for a gig singing in a drag bar where you bring your own boobs – with pasted fine-line eyebrows, lying back on a bar, her voice slipping over the French as she sings “La Vie En Rose” (Louiguy and Edith Piaf) – there’s goosebumps when their eyes meet – they’re soul mates.

The music is used to compliment the story because it’s all about seeing these two together on screen: first time director Bradley Cooper with first time feature film actress Stefani, AKA Lady Gaga.

What a combination: Cooper as Jack with that soulful look off-setting the sometimes-awkward Lady Gaga as Ally, only to be used for added authenticity because we’re all a bit awkward sometimes. And yet, really, she’s not.  Ally just is.

It’s amazing how much I feel like I know this character now.  And how I’m relating to this superstar so well – she’s funny, genuine and wow, can she sing.

But it’s the two of them together that really makes the film.  I don’t think Ally would have been as believable without Cooper as Jack.  And Lady Gaga’s voice lifts the film above the usual country love song.

I was so thankful this wasn’t a musical or music video.

A Star Is Born is a well-balanced film with the authentic music matching the love story so when the music got poppy, the story got sad, to go full circle back to the earthy music again to compliment the end of the story.

Even when there could have been a cheesy moment between older brother Bobby (Sam Elliot) and younger brother Jack, all the feeling was captured in a look from Bobby while backing the car away – everything shown in that one look.

There’s drama here, and it’s a tear-jerker (damn it! I hate getting teary in the cinema), as we’re shown the life-behind-the-curtain of the talented songwriter finding her voice in the musician who sees her as clearly as she sees him.

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