"How are you gonna be a revolutionary if you're such a traditionalist? You hold onto the past, but jazz is about the future." There isn't an ounce of pretension or cynicism in La La Land. This isn't a self-aware modern musical which winks at us as it cribs from musicals of the silver screen. There is full on sincerity in the way La La Land embraces its cinematic roots. But it isn't a love letter to Hollywood's past either. "This is about jazz. It's about conflict and compromise and it's exciting." Director Damien Chazelle, who threw unabashed jazz in our faces in Whiplash, makes a cinematic equivalent of jazz with La La Land. And like a jazz musician, who takes the melodies and patterns of what's come before and transforms them into a non-linear revelation like nothing we have heard before, Chazelle takes the ideas and images of what we are used to and takes them to new places.
The film opens with a musical number, rooted in the 21st century reality but styled after a 40s musical. But it soon dissolves into something very un-Busby Berkeley. And as the film progresses you see you aren't in store for a typical Hollywood romance decorated with hummable songs. What is awaiting you is something far more fascinating and unexpected.
His Los Angeles, his Hollywood, is neither glamorous nor depraved. It is grounded in a very real sense of everyday America. The Dream Factory is just that, a factory. People work there and live their lives. Sometimes it gets in their way, sometimes it pays the bills, sometimes it sustains them in what they are trying to do. It is both beautiful and mundane, and it is here that we follow a love story, a love story which doesn't go the way we think it will.
Gosling and Stone have wonderful chemistry and they take on the soft shoe aspects as well as the vocal stylings in a charming, if imperfect, way. More importantly they handle the pathos superbly. An argument about half way through is painfully real as it careens out of control. It is through glances, through brief smiles, the two are able to connect to each other, to us. The combination of all this is what makes us fall in love.
Composer Justin Hurwitz creates a lovely, rambling, and innovative score/song score. There is a tone here that captures Chazelle's vision perfectly and fits with the characterizations Stone and Gosling bring forth. Musicals need to work as musicals and La La Land triumphs here. Again the music is strongly jazz influenced so it won't feel like a "Hollywood musical" as much as it would have if they had gone a different way. Instead it meanders more and satisfies by sounding wholly original. I dare you to get City of Stars out of your head... or want to... It's just too lovely.
La La Land isn't what you expect. It will take you on a different journey than what you are expecting. For those up for the ride it will be beautiful and fairly mindblowing. For those who need it to be something it's not, it will disappoint.
Sometimes hype can ruin a film. Long before it's release, La La Land was deemed to be something magical, unique, unforgettable. This went on so long, by the time it came out, were we still capable of seeing it's magic or had we already rejected it as being too good to be true? A film like La La Land truly isn't like anything we've seen before, despite how it pays homage to so much that is familiar. It is the kind of film which will stick with you if we aren't too cool to appreciate it.
So everything you've heard about La La Land is true, it's just not in the way you would think. It is one of the best films of 2016. It just may be a big surprise despite the hype.
La La Land
Starring: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling, John Legend
Writer/Director: Damien Chazelle
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