By Ann Hornaday

Movie critic

September 21

Rating: 3.5 stars

The skeptics scoffed when they heard Bradley Cooper had decided to make his directorial debut with yet another remake of “A Star is Born.” What could this relative newcomer to the Hollywood hierarchy possibly bring to one of show business’s Ur-myths of ambition, self-destruction and the cruel vagaries of fame? Admittedly, casting Lady Gaga as an unknown singer who becomes a pop sensation was a masterstroke. But would anyone seriously buy the boyishly handsome Cooper as a wasted, washed-up has-been?

It turns out Cooper is not only a judicious and instinctive storyteller behind the camera, but he also delivers one of the finest performances of his career in “A Star Is Born,” a well-seasoned, handsomely cured slab of showbiz schmaltz that hits all the right pleasure centers. With equal parts glitz and grit, Cooper has successfully navigated the most perilous shoals of making a classic narrative his own, managing to create one of its best iterations to date.

Appropriately enough, “A Star is Born” begins onstage, when Cooper’s character, Jackson Maine, takes a handful of pills and a swig of gin to make it through a packed arena concert. Brandishing a stylish green guitar with scowling swagger, Jackson furiously tears through one of his signature rootsy, hard-driving hits. Filming the sequence in urgent close-ups, Cooper plunges audiences into the deafening world of stardom at its most engulfing peak, made all the more numbing by the cushioned silence of the limo that picks Jackson up after the show.

[At the Toronto International Film Festival, summer turns to fall, and movies turn to the concerns of the day]

Desperate for one more drink, the rock star stops in at a little nightclub, where a waitress named Ally delivers a sensationally torchy version of “La Vie en Rose” in the midst of sundry drag routines. He’s smitten, and who wouldn’t be after the most adorable meet-cute of the year, during which a spirited Greek chorus of drag queens comment lustily from the sidelines?

Viewers familiar with previous versions of “A Star is Born” — whose narrative structure goes almost as far back as the medium itself — will already be bracing themselves for what’s to come. But Cooper allows the audience to revel in Jackson and Ally’s flirtations and courtship, which comes into florid bloom along with the tingly excitement of proximate fame, naked desire and unstoppable creativity. Part of the fun of “A Star is Born” is watching Ally, who lives with her starstruck dad (Andrew Dice Clay), pretend to be immune to the seductions Jackson has to offer, which are sexual but also aspirational. When she finally succumbs, the audience does, too. And when he brings her onstage for her big breakout, and Gaga lets loose with those pipes, the moment is electrifying.

Of course, nothing gold can stay. As Jackson’s and Ally’s fates intersect, collide and, finally, fatally diverge, “A Star is Born” lives up to the operatic tragedy hinted at by the arias that often play in the background. Cooper handles those tonal shifts with confidence as well, as sweaty immediacy becomes something more intimate and soul-baring. As an actress, Gaga may not yet possess the range she has as a singer, but with the help of editor Jay Cassidy, the film is shaped to make the most of her gifts. There are sequences in “A Star is Born” when it feels like a showdown between the best eyes in the business. It’s when she sings that she comes radiantly into her own, claiming the screen as totally as Ally claims the spotlight when her turn comes.

[Bradley Cooper talks ‘A Star is Born,’ swaps college stories and snaps a selfie at Georgetown talk]