A Star is Born has been winning at the box office since it opened a couple of weeks ago. And in addition to winning the box office, the film’s soundtrack is #1 on the Billboard charts and fans have been discussing memorable moments from the film on social media. One moment that stuck out to me was when Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga’s characters first meet.
Mild spoilers to follow…
Jackson (Cooper) stumbles into a bar where he watches Ally (Gaga) perform. Jackson is instantly smitten and woos her with his charm, asking if he can peel off her electrical tape eyebrow (yes, this is an actual moment in the film).
What follows is a bar fight, an eventful trip to a grocery store and a stunning acapella performance from Lady Gaga in a parking lot. This is all cute, but what really caught my attention was the next morning when Jackson drops Ally off at her home and utters one line: “I just wanna take another look at you.”
Simply reading this line doesn’t do it justice, so please skip to 1:12 in the trailer below, to hear Bradley Cooper growl it out.
It’s creepy, right?
Well, not to everyone.
Let’s flashback to June 2018: I was seeing Ocean’s 8 with my mom when the trailer for A Star is Born came on. Immediately after hearing that line, I turned to her and said, “That’s creepy!” My mom, however, thought it was romantic.
Wanting to prove that I was right, I reached out to my former roommate who I’ll call Friend A. She definitely agreed with me that the line was creepy.
Not satisfied with just one person agreeing with me, I decided to conduct an informal poll (read: I texted three of my friends), to see if they would also validate my (correct) opinion of the interaction.
Friend B had seen the trailer and watched it again for the purpose of this poll. Her opinion was that she “wouldn’t say it was totally adorable, but she also didn’t feel totally creeped out,” which lead her to conclude that it was more on the cute side.
Friend C didn’t really remember the trailer, but when I texted her the quote out of context, she felt that it was creepy and “stalkerish.”
Wanting to maintain a majority opinion that I was right, I texted Friend D, who didn’t feel that the line was creepy in the context of the film, but felt that overall, Bradley Cooper’s character was a creepy man.
Friend D brought up a good point: when you see the whole movie, does their first interaction go from a meet creepy to a meet cute? I reached out to Friend A again, who had seen the film with me, and she felt that the line was still creepy.
However, after seeing this movie, I can see Friend D’s point. The highlight of Jack and Ally’s relationship is the beginning when it’s just them in love, without any of the serious issues they eventually face in the film. And when Bradley Cooper growls this line while hanging out of a car window it’s definitely creepy. But when you factor in the way he once again says the line during his final moments with Ally, it becomes poignant, and serves as a (slightly) romantic and emotional way to bookend the film.
With no real consensus reached, I still firmly believe that the “I just wanna take another look at you,” is creepy AF, even if it makes sense in the movie.
A Star is Born is in theaters now.
