The birth of a star is a simple story, as simple as a boy at the core meets a girl who shines for him. He fell in love with her clear talent, fell in love with her narration, fell in love with her and the reality of this Vanity Fair. But instead of becoming the antidote to his helpless life, this girl eventually became his poison. She began to stand under the spotlight, began to interpret her untrue herself, and began to be unfaithful to herself.
She loved him deeply, but he became her stumbling block. He loved her deeply, but she gradually moved away and became the ugly look in his heart. Alcohol and medicine made him divorced from reality for a short time, but the changing life of time dragged the boy to compromise with the world, but he could no longer accept the change. The boy closed his curtain in the most suitable way for him but the loneliest way for the world, because Loneliness makes a person weak.
The film begins on a decadent and noisy stage, a shot where even the protagonist is out of focus. Jack is a singer, a rock singer who is in line with universal prices, and is labeled as alcoholism and drugs. It is also because of Jack's alcoholism that the smoothly laid-out heroine Ally entered the core of Jack's life and the whole story from the bar. In this bar, Ally sang Jack's father's favorite blues genre: "Life of Roses". In this encounter scene, Cooper has a good interpretation of the momentary blankness of a character with complex inner emotions after experiencing great emotional ups and downs. In contrast, the big ups and downs set by the bartender's lines and the smooth mood of the performance formed a gap, which caused embarrassment.
For the follow-up of this scene, in the setting of the two-hour story narration, Cooper cleverly added a mental drama to replace the climax of the fan girl immediately after seeing the idol. In the setting of the psychological drama, Jack and Alley talked all night after they met for the first time. They talked about the North and South, about original music, and about Jack's own beliefs. It was also during this evening’s interaction that Jack recognized Ally’s pursuit and talent. Jack decided not to selfishly enjoy Alley’s talent. He took her, with her music, and on his own stage, in the form of chorus. In this world "Shallow", singing the life they want, singing what they want to escape, and what they want to change. They toured together, wrote songs together, and spent a happy time together. Regarding the definition of this period of time, Bobby (Jack's brother) said: He (Jack) hasn't looked like himself in a long time.
However, time will not go so smoothly. At the end of the loop concert, Ally was discovered by Rez to sign a record company and started his career as a singer. In Ally's own career as a singer, Rez determines everything about her, her performance opportunities, whether she needs a dancer, and even Ally's hair color. Because of Ally's low self-esteem, she did not dare to refute, she was still stuck in denial that her nose was too ugly and accepted any arrangement. She changed her hair color, sang vulgar songs, and lost herself, leaving only a voice left by the heavens, an ingenious tool. Before the Saturday Night scene that Rez arranged for Ally, Jack pointed out the contradiction in his heart, a contradiction between reality and ideals: the audience can't be there all the time, you have to say what you want to say. But Ally didn't immediately realize the meaning of this sentence. She was nominated by Grammys and gained more audiences, and she went further and further. At the same time, the biggest turning point of the movie appeared. Cooper designed to make Jack's career low, using this contrast to push the story to the final chapter.
Jack used drugs and alcohol on the Grammy award-winning stage, and even peeed his pants behind Ally when she received the award. We have seen Ally being recognized, but we can't quantify how Jack's career has fallen, but what can be seen is that Jack's mental state has fallen into the abyss as a result, an abyss that was originally filled. And Ally's journey drifted away, tearing open a hole in Jack's heart. Ally couldn't believe that she became less and less like herself, but she was still moving forward, she shared her career, and Jack said: You are really ugly. Everything here has become counterproductive. Jack began to respect Ally as a guest, began to support Ally more, and at the same time began to exile more ferociously. Sadly, after Jack came out of the withdrawal center, Rez told him that sooner or later you will drink again and you are just a stumbling block to Alley's career. For Jack, at some point, "I" has become a stumbling block for her flattering public. Is this girl really the girl I knew at the time? If not, I don't blame you, but I can't be a stumbling block in her pursuit of herself. Then left alone, leaving this lonely Vanity Fair. You might say that there are infinite possibilities for people alive, but Jack said "I'll never love again", and this is precisely because of the love that Ally can't help himself.
For character creation, Ally does not have enough room for expression. Her existence is more like a foil, a foil that fits the background of the story and reality. She is just a waiter, a dream chaser with talent. Even at the end of the story, she is not a superstar. In contrast, Jack started as a fame and fortune superstar. The movie portrays more emphasis on the sinking of a superstar, rather than beautifying it, to create a chicken soup that everyone has a dream of music.
This movie deserves criticism because of the emotional connection in the first half of the movie. Jack's tragedy is not directly laid out in the first half of the movie. It is only embellished with a small amount of pen and ink, such as tinnitus diagnosed by a doctor, his father's alcoholism, and his own drugs. Misuse. But these don't allow the audience to quickly enter the role setting. On the contrary, we can only see Jack's constant addiction, constant self-destruction, and even ridiculous, because these things happen without a reason. These performances are really moving, but for Chinese audiences and audiences outside the entertainment circle, all the narration is an inside joke without empathy. But from Ally's point of view, her fame process explained what happened in Jack's first half of his life, the birth of a star. The whole movie is the life of a star.
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