It is official: Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are Hollywood’s version of KathNiel. Hollywood can’t seem to stop itself from pairing these two off together – now their third – and seem hell bent on pushing the limit as to how far they can keep on doing this by putting the two stars right smack dab in the middle of a musical. Plus, hello, seven Golden Globes, including best film, actor and actress.

Here’s my roundup of Damien Chazelle’s (Whiplash (2014)) La La Land (2016). Disclaimer: I actually missed the first few minutes of this movie so I’m not sure how it started.

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

In the magical land of Los Angeles, struggling actress-slash-coffee place barista Mia (Emma Stone – Birdman: Or (The Unexpected Virtue of Ignorance) (2014)) and struggling jazz musician Sebastian (Ryan Gosling – The Nice Guys (2016)) always seem to be bumping into each other. Despite the disastrous circumstances of their first few encounters – causing them to seemingly hate each other’s guts – they eventually give fall in love, supporting and pushing each other to chase after their respective dream of making it big in the land of dreams.

THE GOOD:

1. The undeniable chemistry between the two leads. When I first saw them in Crazy, Stupid, Love. (2011) I thought it weird that they were paired up, considering that they had (in my head) zero chemistry together. Okay, color me a convert. They bounced off each other so nicely in this movie that it wouldn’t be difficult to ship them in real life.
2. Emma Stone deserved that Golden Globe. The girl can sing, dance and act phenomenally. I read in the film’s trivia page that their first choice for Mia was Emma Watson and Miles Teller for Sebastian. Not to knock Watson’s acting prowess, but I don’t think her Mia would have been as lovable without Stone’s trademark quirkiness.
3. Holy frak, who knew that they could dance like this? And those dance sequences were really dreamy, if a little too Fred Astair and Ginger Rogers-y. It’s been a long time since there was a film that put this much effort into creating a musical movie.

   

4. John Legend’s unobtrusive presence. Thank goodness he was all low key in this film. Nothing ruins a movie faster than musicians trying to act.

THE BAD:

1. The soundtrack. I’m probably going to receive flak for this opinion but I didn’t really dig it. I thought that the song line up was scattered. Yes, I have listed to it on Spotify and I still feel the same way about the songs. If anything the only number that garnered a visceral emotional reaction out of me was the Epilogue, the tune that Sebastian played on the piano at the end but I think that was mostly because of that painful dream sequence.
2. That Ryan Gosling playing the piano looks like the Draco Malfoy in my head. It’s not his fault, but it distracted me enough to be pulled out of the movie’s narrative.

   

3. The nostalgic nods to the classic films the director obviously adores. While I usually like the tiny winks directors put in movies to pay homage to the classics but I personally think that there were a bit too many of those in this one.

THE UGLY:

1. It was a little bit self-serving, to be honest. While it’s a good movie, I think I can see exactly why the people over in Hollywood would go gaga over this, since it pretty much validates their struggles. Sure, getting rejected over and over is tough, but doctors save lives.
2. That ending though. It’s only on the ‘ugly’ section because of the emotional turmoil it caused me as I was driving home after seeing the movie. It was just too real, you know? Mad props to whoever had the balls to end such a sweet, sweet story in such a heartbreaking manner.

All in all, Chazelle’s La La Land was a fun movie to watch – up until the ending, that is. I went into this movie expecting your usual fluffly musical fanfare but hot damn, I went home reminded that everything comes with a price and that you can’t have something as big as your dream occupying your life without losing something else. Performances were okay all around and the musical numbers were entertaining even if the actual music was a bit lacking. I’m still not convinced that this deserves Best Picture though.

THE VERDICT: 7/10

 

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.