La La Land

La La Land is easily the most effortlessly charming movie I have seen in years.  It's a dizzying, joyous, and vibrant musical that positively leaps off the screen with the kind of life few films possess.  Whenever a movie earns the kind of praise that this one has during the months leading up to Award Season, it's easy to be skeptical, but I implore you to believe the hype here.  And if you can, see it on the big screen.  It's one of the few films I can think of that truly deserves to be seen in a theater with a crowd lost under its spell.

This is writer-director Damien Chazelle's second major feature, after his breakthrough debut, 2014's Whiplash.  If his first film proved that he could make a powerful and intimate drama, then here he proves that he can create a truly unforgettable cinematic musical dream.  It's the kind of leap from one film to the next that makes you excited to see what else he can do, and also a little nervous.  I don't want to see this guy get chewed up by the Studio System, or hashing out forgettable franchises.  In just this one movie, he puts so much heart and wonder into it, you just hope you never have to see him working with his hands tied.  This is a filmmaker who deserves to be let free, and let his imagination carry his films wherever it will take them.  If his first two movies are any indication, audiences are in for one heck of an experience.

The inspiration behind his vision for La La Land is obvious right from the studio logo, which is represented in a 1950s style, followed by the old fashioned CinemaScope screen that used to open many Hollywood epics.  We are then transported to a modern day Los Angeles that seems inspired by the dream-like images of Hollywood from classic musicals like Singin' in the Rain.  Were it not for the fact that everyone has a smartphone, the movie could have been set in the Golden Age of the movies.  We are then introduced to two young hopefuls who will be our gateway into the world Chazelle has created for us.  Mia (the luminous Emma Stone) is a 20-something coffee barista with dreams of making it as an actress.  Stone is winsome, precious without being cute, and just impossibly engaging.  We sense her determination, her desire, and her frustration as she flubs one audition after another.

At the same time, we also meet Sebastian (Ryan Gosling, at his best), a young man obsessed with preserving classic jazz music, and with big dreams of his own of opening his own jazz club.  Until then, he's forced to take any gig he can, such as playing at a piano bar for a gruff boss (Whiplash star, J.K. Simmons, making a hilarious cameo), or being part of a cheesy80s cover band.  The two young future lovers have various run ins with each other early on.  They first briefly meet on the L.A. overpass in the film's rousing opening musical number, where various motorists exit their cars to join in an elaborate choreographed song.  They meet again at a bar, and then at a poolside party, which is where their relationship finally takes off, and we enter a gloriously romantic fantasy where the two spend a year together dreaming, falling in love, and finding themselves possibly slowly torn apart by their own dreams.

Gosling and Stone have worked together before, first in 2011's Crazy Stupid Love, and again in 2013's Gangster Squad.  Here, they not only create instant romantic chemistry, but are just wonderful individually.  It's easily some of their best work, both alone and when they have been paired together.  La La Land is a musical, but it's not the kind that stops every few minutes for the characters to break into song.  It saves those moments for fantastic dream-like sequences of romance and wonder, or for when the characters are faced with a crossroads in their lives.  Both Gosling and Stone have natural voices.  They don't sing like trained professionals, nor do they seem like they're auditioning for a talent contest.  Their emotion rings just as true when they are singing as much as when they are delivering their lines.

And even though this is a romantic and sometimes dream-like musical, the movie does have an undercurrent that you would not expect walking in.  Mia and Sebastian do get hit by hard times, have troubles, and yes, have a falling out or two.  But it is not played up with melodrama as you would expect from a modern day, or even a classic, musical.  We can feel and understand the pain of these characters and relate to them.  The use of music, as well as the performances from Gosling and Stone, adds so much it's hard to describe.  I don't remember the last time a movie musical has affected me so emotionally.  The movie can be joyous and filled with wonder, but it is also honest and rough at times.  The fact that it can pull off both aspects so effortlessly is not only rare, it's also just incredibly well done. 

La La Land is a truly rare film, one that likely will not be forgotten once the Awards have been handed out.  It's a true cinematic event, and something that you just don't see at the movies all too often.  It not only leaves you on a natural high, it makes you want to turn around and see it again as soon as it's over. 

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