A Star Is Born: Loving Someone You Cannot Heal

Spoiler Alert. This article contains major spoilers for A Star Is Born.

One of my favorite movies, which I recently watched again, is A Star Is Born. I have seen it before, but it still gets to me. Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga are outstanding in it. What touches me most is the love between Jackson and Ally. Because there is so much I love about the way these two people love each other.

I love the way Jackson falls in love with Ally. I love the fact that he loves her for who she is. I love the fact that he wants other people to experience the gift he experienced with her. I love that he gives her his stage. His audience. His space. The way her authenticity touches his heart makes him want the world to hear hers.

I love that kind of generosity. I desire that kind of generosity. I love the fact that he believes in her talent and that he is willing to take a risk with her by sharing his stage.

And the fact that she sees him too. I love how she sees the man behind the star. She sees his vulnerability, his pain and even his self-destruction. And she still loves him for him.

I love the fact that she can love him and still hate what he is doing to himself. The fact that she challenges him. That she doesn't become delicate around him because he is emotionally broken. She stays herself. Being raised by her father and his friends makes her familiar with the fragility of men. She dares to speak her mind. Direct, transparent, adventurous and loving at the same time.

Somehow, underneath all that toughness, I love that there is still something innocent in the way she loves him. That hope. That maybe my love will be enough. Maybe if someone finally sees all of him and stays, something will change.

He Tried to Be That Man for Her

And I know Jackson really loved her too. He tried to be that man for her. I don't see Jackson as someone who entered her life with bad intentions. Quite the opposite. I think he wanted to give her everything that he was able to give.

I even love the fact that he becomes jealous. The woman he discovered is suddenly being discovered by everyone else. Her world is getting bigger. His place inside that world is getting smaller. And he simply cannot handle that feeling.

And I love the fact that Ally sees that too. She doesn't judge him for his jealousy. She understands that there is something underneath it. His pride. His vulnerability. A man struggling with himself.

But understanding someone's emotions doesn't make those emotions harmless.

Maybe She Was Discovering Herself

What I didn't love was the fact that Jackson wanted Ally to stay the woman he first met. I understood why. He fell in love with something raw in her. Something untouched. And when the industry started changing her appearance, her sound and the way she performed, he was afraid that she was losing the woman he fell in love with.

But I don't think she was losing herself. She was exploring her artistry. She was discovering different versions of herself.

During the movie, it became clear to me that he gave her a stage because he needed her next to him. He knew she was a star, but when she no longer needed his stage, he struggled. He was not prepared for a stardom that excluded him.

The movie became painful for me when it became clear that Jackson could recognize so much beauty in another person but was incapable of recognizing anything beautiful in himself.

And it was painful to watch Ally slowly discover that loving him was not the same as being able to save him. Because she tried. She saw the pain underneath the addiction. She saw his condition slowly deteriorate.

His shadow became bigger. His shame became bigger. His need to escape himself became bigger.

The Ghost Inside the Bottle

And I couldn't stop thinking about the relationship he had with his late father. About the drinking. About the fact that alcohol wasn't only part of Jackson's addiction. It was also a reflection of his dad.

Which made his addiction even sadder to me. Because his self-destruction became a way for Jackson to stay connected to the one he loved. Drinking still belonged to his father. To their time together. To a closeness he didn't know how to recreate without it. And I wondered if giving up alcohol also meant giving up one of the last places where his father still existed.

Maybe that is why some ghosts are so difficult to let go of. Sometimes we don't only have to let go of the addiction. We have to let go of the person we keep meeting inside of it.

The Kind of Brokenness Love Cannot Fix

And then there was Ally. Still loving him. Still seeing the man underneath everything he was doing to himself.

I think that is what hurts me most about A Star Is Born. She had so much love to give him, and I believe he really wanted to receive it. He tried to be the man for her. But he was carrying too much noise. His addiction. His shame. His father. His jealousy. His fear of being left behind. His inability to see in himself what everyone around him could still see.

And Ally could love him through all of it. But she couldn't heal it for him.

That is one of the most painful things to accept when you love someone. You can see where their pain lives. Even understand why they behave the way they do. And you can see the person underneath their brokenness so clearly that you keep hoping they will eventually see that person too.

But seeing someone's pain doesn't give you the power to take it away. Ally loved Jackson. She believed in him. She challenged him. She even married him. She kept reminding him of who he was in her eyes.

But she could not make him want to live inside the love she was offering him. And maybe that is why A Star Is Born still gets to me. Because I know how it feels when the love is real, but your love still cannot fix what someone has not been able to heal within themselves.

With Love,

Mara Michels