La La Land is a dazzling, retro musical set in Los Angeles starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. Gosling's Sebastian is a struggling jazz pianist with dreams to open up his own club, but is hamstrung for money and takes boring background gigs in dingy bars to make ends meet. Stone's Mia is an aspiring actress working at a studio coffee shop serving lattes to the A-Listers she aspires to be like. Damien Chazelle is at the helm of this whimsical and beautiful romance that tackles deep themes with an irresistibly catchy soundtrack and gorgeous visual splendor.
Following up 2014's Whiplash was always going to be difficult given the quality and rewatchability that movie has. Whiplash was Chazelle's breakout as a director, as he showed off his undying love for jazz and slick style. If Whiplash is a punishing ode to the strict, unflinching nature of the musical genre in terms of technical precision, then La La Land is a spiritual sequel that stresses freedom and fluidity in the genre, while also boasting an expanded focus in terms of theme. La La Land is a film that literally sings LA's praises, but also makes scathing criticisms of Hollywood's shallowness. Stone's Mia endures countless auditions where casting directors are portrayed as snobby, self-absorbed gatekeepers who are disinterested and rude. Hollywood success is first treated as an idea, an abstraction or an unattainable goal that can beat you down and crush your confidence, yet the film glorifies the idea and paints LA a in a vibrant and gorgeous color palette. La La Land is wonderfully shot and also features beautiful music composed by Justin Hurwitz, Chazelle's roommate at Harvard and prior collaborator on Whiplash. The music is ambitious yet restrained, as it caters to the fact that Gosling and Stone are actors before singers and allows them to thrive without being too challenged. It lends to realism as far as musicals go and authenticity as we see the main stars actually sing and dance their numbers. I for one am not a fan of musicals, generally speaking they are my least favorite genre. However, La La Land boasts memorable sequences that are visually stunning and emotionally potent.
"La La Land is a film that literally sings LA's praises, but also makes scathing criticisms of Hollywood's shallowness"
Despite Chazelle's fantastic control of the narrative and Hurwitz music, Gosling and Stone are the real stars here. Gosling is fantastic as the driven and charming jazz pianist Sebastian, a role that required Gosling to learn how to play the piano very well. While it isn't the signature Gosling performance I've been waiting for, he's still very good. Besides from 2006's Half Nelson, Gosling has consistently ranged between a stoic, brooding action star or a slick womanizer. Gosling still brings it here, but he's yet to truly wow me. That's not to say that I don't enjoy him as an actor. After all, you could probably argue he's hitting a no-hitter in the 2010's considering that his string of recent projects include The Nice Guys, the underrated The Place Beyond the Pines, The Big Short, Drive, Crazy, Stupid, Love, Blue Valentine, and the upcoming Blade Runner sequel. He's basically one great, range-expanding performance away from being the top actor in the business. Stone is fantastic and probably carries more of the weight from a musical standpoint, she earns top marks here.
La La Land is without a doubt my favorite movie to come out in 2016. It's a beautiful and fun movie, but isn't afraid to dig deep and tackle complex themes. The gorgeous back drop of LA serves as a canvas for a colorful and passionate love story with great acting and music. La La Land is a film the walks the tight-rope between reality and our dreams, making the viewer be challenged in analyzing what it has to say about sacrifice and compromise. Jazz music itself can serve as a metaphor for what this film is trying to say, and Gosling's Sebastian passionately delivers his view on the power of the music and what it brings out of people. La La Land is a story about the trials and tribulations of achieving success, and more specifically, its emotional cost. Putting a modern and relatable spin on a dated genre, while also daring to be bold in its thematic implications, La La Land is very impressive and the best film of the year.