Spoilers ahead!! Trust me they only make you want to watch the movie more.
La La Land has already made history, breaking the record for most Golden Globes won by a single film after snagging all seven of the awards it was nominated for. In January, the film was nominated for 14 Academy Awards, it seems like the musical is set to make an unprecedented sweep through award season in addition to being the most romantic movie in years.
Written and directed by Academy Award nominee Damien Chazelle(for Whiplash), he continues to depict his love for music and films through the same. This is a modern-day musical where Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a jazz piano player who has a lot of passion for this style of music and Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress who meets him and they begin to fall for each other, help make each other’s dreams come true. The movie is set in beautiful locations of LA particularly one incredible dance sequence which may have only been six minutes in the movie, but they did capture the brief “magic hour” moment at sunset.
Coming to the true star of the movie -the soundtrack. Their love story is told through musical forms. Justin Hurwitz brought out the enchanting voices of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in City of Stars. It bagged 3 deserving Oscar nominations in this category- Original Score, Original Song( “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)”), Original Song( “City Of Stars“).
One of the things I loved most about the film is it being such a perfect throwback to an earlier Hollywood era but with a realistic approach to it in the end. Why did I say realistic? Am I going to reveal a big spoiler? Well, yes. Mia and Seb split up. If they really didn’t, it would be an old-school classic Hollywood film where everything is perfect and you don’t need any logic. There is a pretty good part in the beginning that shows us this story is going against tradition bringing us to a more rounded place of reality. Life doesn’t always turn out the way you want it to. Not every love story has the word ‘eternity’ in it. That is why it’s a unique modern musical – the love story failed, the lovers succeeded.
Chazelle was asked why Stone and Gosling’s characters don’t end up together. Here’s what he had to say-“Real life doesn’t always live up to the dreams in the movies, but that, in a way, is a great subject for a movie. And that’s kind of what drove me with this: making a movie that was definitely informed by these idealized visions that you get from the old Hollywood musicals, but one in which hopefully you have to question a little bit whether real-life lives up and what the give and take has to be. These are characters who — and every character in the movie to a certain extent — has to negotiate the balance between dreams and reality, as we all do. To me, it’s trying to say something about that. I find movies where the lovers wind up not together more romantic. When they wind up together, it’s like you don’t know what’s going to happen after the movie . . . but these two will always be a perfect pair for me.”
Beautiful, right? La La Land is the movie we didn’t know we needed until it arrived. It is simply a splendid continuation of cinema’s ever-evolving love affair with song and dance, a phenomenal start in bringing back musicals in a big way.
This film is a love letter to all those people who are passionate about their dreams and never give up on them. Even if you are not into musicals this movie is worth watching it.
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