La La Land Review

Almost seven years to the party, I finally sat down and watched La La Land, a romantic-musical dramedy released in 2016 starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as two struggling artists in LA who fall in love while chasing their dreams. I'd heard good things about it, I like movie musicals and musicals in general, and I am trying to make a career in the arts (and am also in a longterm relationship with another artist). I was primed, for the most part, to like this movie.

Unfortunately, I overall did not, giving it a ranking of

and I am letting you know upfront in an appeal to save your time. If you loved this movie, wonderful! This review may not be for you. If you saw La La Land and didn't understand what all the fuss is about, or you're curious of whether this is a movie you may enjoy, please read on!

The first third of the movie was charming, with good choreography and fun group numbers. Emma Stone boasts a fair voice and likeable charm as the main character of the movie, a pretty young actress in LA who is being crushed under the gruelling grind of the industry. I found the movie stumbled a bit more in getting me to like Ryan Gosling's character, due to his ego that mostly came across as an inflated self-importance. I also highly doubt that two people would remember each other's faces months later, even if they remembered the two ruder first encounters they'd had with one another.

Gosling also doesn't have the best voice, causing his more solo-driven numbers (of which there is largely one) and his duet with Stone, "What A Waste of a Lovely Night," to make a well composed song come off a little flat. I also wasn't initially sold on their chemistry.

However, the middle chunk of the movie won me over to both him and their relationship. Many of the shots throughout the movie are stunning, particularly the scene where Mia, Emma's character, arrives for their date for an old-timey movie. The homages the movie pays to the old style of movie musicals is perpetually charming and carries some of the earlier, weaker scenes, while strengthening the later ones.

I also found many of their internal conflicts to be relatable. Mia works a part-time retail job while trying to pursue what she actually wants (been there and am still there, in many ways). Gosling's character, Sebastian, clings to his vision at risk of going bankrupt, and then has to come to terms with how much he is, or isn't, willing to sell out in order to 'make it'. They were also a genuinely charming couple, with his ego giving her more of the confidence she needed, and her getting him to be more grounded and able to compromise.

Unfortunately, though, the last third of the movie didn't work. From the time Mia and Sebastian have their big fight, I was emotionally disengaged with the movie, and honestly laughed my way through many of the dramatic moments. Their fight felt forced and contrived in a way the majority of the movie didn't, as all of the issues they brought up (like Seb not knowing when he was going to stop touring) were things that 1) could've been resolved in a five minute conversation and 2) should've happened as soon as he got the touring gig, not months into the job. The fact that the two were living together and were supposed to be having a mature adult relationship, yet couldn't scrounge together basic communication skills, made the more intense and dramatic scenes come off as being genuinely, unintentionally hilarious.

It also meant their breakup scene felt forced as well. There was very little reason given that they couldn't have done a long-distance relationship (I've been in one for over two years) nor were their problems, again, anything that couldn't have been talked through my two reasonable adults. The final tearjerker scene of the movie, then, felt very long, not bolstered enough by a proper emotional connection to make it anything more than visually appealing, and leaving the film on a laughable low note rather than the sentimental one it clearly wanted.

I was particularly thrown by Mia's tearful admission that she'd been trying to make it as an actress in LA for only six years; as an artist myself, I've just been working on the latest reiteration of a project almost daily for six years, and I still expect it to be another ten at least before I see anything substantial come out of it.

Another strange underlying current I found in the movie was the way it brushed against, but never fully committed, to discussing topics of race. Jazz is a deeply Black artform, both in history and in vibe, yet Sebastian is seen as the one who can 'save it' from dying out, rather than selling out like his one prominent Black contemporary (who is played by John Legend -- talented, but unexpected in a way that reeks of 2016 hilarity). Said man is someone Seb dislikes and has a terse history with for some reason that seems to be one-sided, yet we never find out the reason and the plot thread is dropped. It also doesn't help that Legend has a magnificent voice, causing me to wonder why he, or indeed a Black man, wasn't cast as the leading man in the first place.

Likewise, the movie glamorizes the nostalgic feel of Old Hollywood, with Seb and Mia longing to return to that sort of glitz and glamour. The movie fails to ever point out that the 'golden years' of movies were not glamorous for anyone who wasn't white. Mia's struggles as an also actress could have been amplified better if she'd been played, likewise, by a woman of colour, torn between taking distasteful roles or losing out to white women by default before triumphing.

It makes the Black characters in the background feel like set-dressing, and the acknowledgement of jazz's history at all (in a brief allusion with an all Black band playing) make Seb's whiteness feel all the more strange.

Overall, La La Land is buoyed by fantastic visuals and helping dose of charm, but neither can save the bogged down final third of the movie and its unearned dramatic moments.

If you liked this review, please like and subscribe, as I hope to look at more movies (like "The Little Prince," and the "The Notebook") in the future, as well as beloved and more obscure cartoons.