Cukor’s late films, beginning with A Star Is Born, in panoramic format, are a series of very different experiments. Having reached perfection in Born Yesterday and It Should Happen to You, the director found himself in a position where to avoid the risk of repetition or sclerosis he had to disown it and seek the path of difficulty. In this film he directs Magnani, as well as Quinn and Franciosa, with a rather modest script. This is really the peak of a difficult and thrilling experience. […] Magnani, who is older and shabbier than ever, is fantastic. Perhaps because the problems she had getting used to Cukor’s way of working were similar to those of the character she was playing. Like Quinn, she is restrained throughout the most dramatic sequences and exuberant in the less important ones. So because of his fear of an overacted performance, the film certainly gains in realism as everyone knows that we are more ourselves in everyday situations, like cleaning the kitchen, than at moments when we make decisions that will affect our destiny.
Luc Moullet, in “Cahiers du cinéma”, 91, 1959