Film Review: La La Land

My recommendation: Go. I did...twice.

It’s about dreaming. In a renaissance of the classic musical, La La Land feels like a welcome day dream you’ve visited before.

Individually and collectively, a jazz pianist named Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and an aspiring actor Mia (Emma Stone) swirl through the process of falling in and out of love with their craft and with one another against the backdrop of Los Angeles.

Referred to as the “City of Stars” in one of the aptly named songs from the soundtrack of the film, the characters use Los Angeles as a prop, a stage and a supporting character all its own. Artfully, the city remains in the background despite Mia and Sebastian traipsing through such undeniable sights as the Griffith Observatory, downtown trolleys, the Warner Brothers lot and iconic boulevards. Audiences bare witness to Mia and Sebastian’s aspirations that ebb and flow on the venues of L.A. Despite weaving memories in and out of these destinations throughout the city, these environments rarely steal the scene altogether. Thus, inviting the audience to set these life experiences to their own surroundings.

The film was directed by Damien Chazelle, who also directed Whiplash. Seemingly, Chazelle set each scene as if waving his hand to welcome audiences to join in on each 8-count and chorus.

Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone showcase lesser known talents as singers and dancers while making audiences feel at home with their respective knacks for story telling.

Since its release, the film has garnered seven Golden Globe nominations including Best Picture (Musical or Comedy) as well as Best Actor and Best Actress in a leading role. Describing the film in “Actors on Actors” for Variety magazine, Emma Stone says, “it’s basically an MGM musical for the modern age.”

In many ways, La La Land lets us peer into a future for the genre of comedic musicals that fit into today’s world. Towed cars, cracked iPhone faces and popular culture references breathe relevancy into the film where non-believers of musicals may otherwise turn a cold shoulder. However, some of the more traditional aspects of the film may continue to inhibit those who are wary of musicals.

From start to finish, this film explores the question of “what if”. In doing so, it plays with the realistic depictions and the inner dialogue of the stages of life. Take, for example, the vignetted frames to cue and to close musical numbers. These spotlit scenes are reminsiscent of the 1961 musical film, West Side Story, where emotion and attention hone in on only the necessary people in the frame, drawing the rest of the room in shadows. It’s near impossible not to recall the Shakespearean love story of Tony and Maria when you witness the start to Mia and Sebastian’s story at a dimly lit piano bar.

Brushes of 1960’s styling accent this film from pastel and cream-colored palettes. For the character of Sebastian, a nostalgic and quick-witted artist, the outdated trends are a tailored fit in his character development. Yet, at times the ’60s accents came across inconsistent in terms of dress, props and style especially for the character of Mia whose closet and vanity seemed to rarely belong to the same twenty-something. For a film that transports your heart, your mind — hell, it even kick-starts your work-ethic — it fell just short on conveying a unanimous statement where styling is concerned.

Alongside the talents of the actors and the effortlessly smooth soundtrack, these hooded vignettes and dream sequences help write the words “romance” and “euphoria” in capital letters.

Whether you like the film or not, you will talk about it. You will mull it over and perhaps put these philosophies regarding passion into practice. Because La La Land, as you will come to find, is less about the physicality of making dreams come to life in Los Angeles as it is about putting together the pieces, making sacrifices and reveling in the progress toward your own dream. La La Land urges us forward. It says to us, you can be starry-eyed anywhere.

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