A star is born: has the beardy bloke music biopic had its day?

Looking at this season’s awards contenders, it is clear quite a few female actors have had the same idea: portray a pop star, one who is about to be chewed up by the music industry. Preferably in a movie whose title sounds like a Nirvana song.

Take Vox Lux, which sees Natalie Portman chasing a second Oscar as a jaded pop chameleon. Burdened by scandal, past trauma, celebrity and extreme eye makeup, but buoyed by some electro-pop stompers (courtesy of Sia), she is an emblematic 21st-century woman on the edge and off the rails. Portman gives it her all.

You could say the same for Elisabeth Moss, who trades Handmaid for bandmate in Her Smell. She plays Becky Something, the talented, difficult leader of a 90s grunge band who is on the verge of meltdown (substance abuse, family baggage, the usual suspects). Director Alex Ross Perry describes it as “a five-act tragedy about girl punk bands”. Screen International describes it as “Sporadically brilliant, occasionally unbearable”.

Destined for a future double bill with Her Smell is Teen Spirit, in which Elle Fanning plays a pop competitor from the Isle of Wight. Fanning has form in this area, having recently portrayed an alien who discovers the liberating spirit of punk in Croydon-set sci-fi oddity How to Talk to Girls at Parties (featuring Nicole Kidman in full Toyah mode). In it, Fanning ended up fronting a punk band, clad in clingfilm and eyeliner; in Teen Spirit she is living the Pop Idol fantasy, but she can sing. Serving a grittier variation on the same theme is Wild Rose, with rising star Jessie Buckley (last seen in Beast) as a Glasgow ex-con and single mum who dreams of being a country singer.

It’s about time. Women dominate pop, something that hasn’t been put on screen in a meaningful way until now. The 1980s had cult films such as Ladies and Gentlemen the Fabulous Stains, a spirited tale of punk stardom, with then-unknowns Diane Lane and Laura Dern. There was Hazel O’Connor in punk saga Breaking Glass, and more recently the Runaways biopic, with Dakota Fanning and Kristen Stewart. But it has mostly been male-dominated biopics or glossy pop confections such as Mariah Carey’s Glitter.

Ironically, the current frontrunner in this new pop star race is a performer crossing the floor in the opposite direction: Lady Gaga. Her performance in Bradley Cooper’s A Star Is Born has stolen the limelight from the “proper” actors. While they are channelling the real-life Gaga for their on-screen personas, Gaga has ditched the costumes and showed she can really act – and sing at the same time. Admittedly, this rehashed melodrama isn’t at all “punk”, but its symbolic passing of the baton from a washed-up old guy to an overlooked female could make it the music movie for our times.

A Star Is Born is in UK cinemas from 5 October