La La Land

One of the moments in Hollywood history that will never be forgotten was during the 2017 Academy Awards when La La Land and Moonlight butted heads to see who would win the Best Picture award, and technically both of them did. When La La Land was named yet had the title stripped away once it was revealed to be a mistake, this led to a lot of talk about which one actively deserved it, as both did great on a critical level, yet both had their fair share of haters as well, so it could’ve been anyone’s guess. However, while Moonlight has received a lot of backlash for its win, La La Land is still held in good graces by the public (maybe because they felt bad for it losing in such a way), so what does this movie do that won people over then and even now? Taking place in an undisclosed time in Los Angeles, two aspiring newcomers face their own struggles as they try to make a name for themselves in the entertainment industry. These two being aspiring actress Mia (played by Emma Stone) who never gets a chance during her auditions due to uncaring and apathetic talent scouts and producers and struggling jazz pianist Sebastian (played by Ryan Gosling) who wishes to open his own nightclub to save the dying genre of music yet doesn’t have the money for it. Upon meeting after a few rough patches, the two start to hit it off, a romance is bloomed, and everything seems to be looking up for both of them as their passions and dreams soon become reality. But when the fanatical environment starts to fade away and reality starts to come crashing back down, they realize the struggles they are facing are still prominent, but just in different ways. With both pursuing new avenues to reach their dreams (with one succeeding and the other failing), this spark of love may be put on the rocks as the decision between which they wish to dedicate their time towards keeps creeping up to them.  When it came out, La La Land was met with astounding praise from both the public and critics, winning a record-breaking six awards from its fourteen nominations at the 2017 Academy Awards. Though not many people talk about it today and it does still have its issues, it clearly left its mark when it came out.

Despite having an undisclosed time period, it’s very clear that this movie is taking heavy inspiration from not only the Golden Age of Hollywood, but also the musicals that came out around that time with examples like Singin’ in the Rain, The Band Wagon, and An American in Paris. It’s a style that people recognize for the light and jovial atmospheres they create where real-life rules don’t apply, and they essentially create real-life fairy tales in musical format. It has its own charm that clearly writer and director for this film, Damien Chazelle, had a passion for as this idea went back as far as his college days and he held onto it until he originally pitched the script in 2010. Through a lot of trials and after a big success with writing and directing his 2014 critically acclaimed movie, Whiplash, he was finally given his chance to make this movie. What’s so brilliant about how this movie operates is how it is simultaneously a homage to the old-fashion musicals while also being an update of the traditional formula, making it more than just a surface layer element and actually making it integral to how the movie plays out. What starts off like a pretty shallow movie with a basic plot and characters being masked over by a ton of great style, production design and over-the-top music numbers eventually leads its way into a more down-to-earth, realistic portrayal of how people struggle with achieving their dreams in Hollywood. By using this extravagant older style of musicality and filmmaking, it acts like an infantilization of the Hollywood dream (much like what is experienced by the lead characters and many other real people who go wishing to pursue a career in the industry) which eventually transitions into a more traditional, grounded and even a little pessimistic movie when reality hits them. The directing for this movie is very good and clearly shows Chazelle’s passion for musicals and how they operate and function. What should be a movie with style over substance problems actually uses that to its advantage in creating something unique and charmingly innocent, while also being true to life and pretty identifiable for anyone trying to work in that environment. Its pacing is great, the switch between the two halves is fantastically handled, and with how the story plays out, its pulling from familiar trends, but makes sure to twist them enough to not make it obvious where its heading.

In trying to capture stars that felt akin to the type of old Hollywood couple like Spencer Tracy and Kathrine Hepburn, both Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling seemed to fit the bill perfectly for that criteria. Though not the movie’s first choice (originally it was supposed to be Miles Teller and Emma Watson), its hard to see how they would have worked in this movie, while Stone and Gosling work especially well in this film. While both of their characters aren’t the most original (and even Gosling’s role could easily come off as a pompous stuck-up jerk), they manage to turn them into something effective. Both of them are not starstruck names, but they are both recognizable names that were helped out by this movie because they are able to capture that pain of struggling through trials for their dreams that don’t always work out. Both are very good actors that capture just the right balance of whimsical, but grounded charm to work in both the fanatical environment and the realistic environment. Both are written to be capable and realistic people that suffer problems because of standard business issues and real-life relationship goals that would happen to anyone in that kind of work, never fully creating a situation where either is the bad guy, but both are deeply flawed and show off their bad sides when things get tricky and stressful. While neither of them are incredible singers, their style of imperfect singing adds to their performances and works within the roles they are given; with Stone’s voice being wonderfully vulnerable and Gosling’s being flawed, yet wistfully effective. While the background roles and bit roles like J.K Simmons and John Legend are fine, they don’t intrude too much on the movie and leave the focus squarely on those two, which makes the movie feel a little more small-scale, yet personal at the same time.

The visuals and style of this movie easily screams traditional musical (even down to the fact that its filmed-on celluloid and not digital), and this helps creates an environment that feels both colorful and lively, while also working as a realistic, fast-paced location where dreamers come to achieve their goals and are even willing to put everything on the line for it. L.A is filled with a lot of dramatic colors, flashy buildings, and a mixture of lavish and ordinary looking places, and the production design by David Wasco contributes to that personality which adds to a lot of the film’s likability. The costumes by Alex Angelino and Mary Zophres are bursting with bright colors, the cinematography by Linus Sandgren gets some fantastic shots that really show off the great choreography and the even more beautiful landscapes (this movie uses the ‘magic hour’ so often in this movie, but it’s a beautiful looking sky), and there are several call-backs to not only classic musicals, but even certain black and white movies through the score and songs composed by Justin Hurwitz and written by Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. The music is strangely unmemorable from a lyrical standpoint but are wonderfully paced and performed by the cast and the score. It has great upbeat energy and fantastic flow and rhythm, and even the forgettable nature feels intentional, as its more style and energy over substance and memorability. It’s so caught up in being fun and passionate that it ignores leaving an impression (outside of a certain Emma Stone moment). This works especially nicely as the second half transitions a lot of these elements out without going too far; the colors are still there, but muted, the music and songs are not treated like musical songs, but rather someone just singing a little tune, and the cinematography stops doing the long uncut shots and becomes more traditional.

La La Land clearly has a lot of effort and passion put into it and it’s wonderful that a passion project finally got out onto the big screen and allowed a talent to achieve one of his long-time goals in a movie that people clearly adored. It’s hard to say that this movie will be for everyone as it still features a lot of elements of those old musicals that people might just not be fond of and seeing another movie about how fantastic Hollywood is can be a little heavy-handed at times (which makes it all the more funny that it didn’t even win despite how much the Academy clearly loved how much it was praising them) but it still has a ton of great acting, directing, visuals and music to check out. Whether or not it deserved to win the Best Picture or not is up to the viewer, but regardless, it has a lot to offer people who just want to check it out and see what an old-fashioned musical has to offer in a current era.