La La Land
Director(s) - Damien Chazelle
Runtime - 2h 8min
Awards
Oscar 2017 - Best Motion Picture
Oscar 2017 - Best Leading Actress
Oscar 2017 - Best Director
Studio(s) - Lionsgate
Release date - December 2017
Bad Synopsis
Most “happily ever after” romance that never was, most by-the-book musical about following your dreams that crazily enough doesn’t feel cliché.
Notes/Opinion
Absolute cinema, I tell you! I’m actually surprised I didn’t get to it sooner.
Ryan Gosling once said that the people in Hollywood (actors, directors) have a responsibility towards movie-goers, and somehow La La Land really embodies that sentiment.
There are some films that really feel like movies, completely relishing what they are. La La Land has an aspirational, uplifting quality that makes it feel like old Hollywood. It actually took me a while to get through the first musical number. The songs don’t exactly suck, but there have been certain stories where the start isn’t too strong and it can take a while for you to get hooked.
Is that a failure on the story’s part? Who knows.
Anyway, the color grading is lovely, there’s always a joy in watching a piece of media that’s actually vibrant. There’s not always a need to show things exactly as they are, especially not with La La Land, so why do that? Gray and bleak and sloppy doesn’t mean realistic anyway.
Also, for all the time it took me to actually sit down and watch this movie, I genuinely think it found me at a right time. That’s the thing: sometimes there’s family-friendly piece of media you never really got into as a child or teen, but then you realize that adulthood was a perfect time.
I think La La Land is very much a 20s film, an empathetic and encouraging story for anyone who’s hopeful enough to keep trying but disappointed enough to be afraid. The point in your life where you have yet to see the gratification of your success. There was something about Emma Stone’s monologue that moved me deeply when I heard it the first time, because that’s kind of where I am. The million auditions, the pressing question of whether this going anywhere?
Naturally things turn out nicely for both the leads, at least to an extent. You might argue that things don’t always work out, it’s too optimistic, and so on. I still think trying as a habit, a policy, is always going to be worthwhile.
There’s also the question of the main, arguably doomed romance. The ending is one of the most emotionally devastating choices they could’ve made, and at face value it makes no sense. I think it all goes back to real life not being perfect, and the sad truth that you can never really have it all. There’s always gonna be a regret, a question of what could have been. It’s a weirdly grounded take in an otherwise whimsical, fairytale-adjacent story. Either way, La La Land is not just visually stunning but emotionally devastating. It’s inspiring, it’s a return to the hopeful nature of old Hollywood.
It almost makes you forget that Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are two huge movie stars, gracefully telling you from all the way up there that dreams are worth it. There’s something honest about the performance.
It makes you want to believe it.
Sources: Sources: Google, IMDB, Wikipedia
Did you like the songs in La La Land? What did you think about the ending? Let me know!