A struggling actress and a struggling Jazz musician meet and fall in love over the course of a year in a throw back style of movie musicals. It's an affair that is hanging on by a piano string to begin with and when dreams and reality are entered into the mix, it becomes even more of a challenge to maintain. But true love concurs all, right?
Cast
Who will like this
Although this may have all the markings of a "chick flick", don't be fooled by its romantic storyline or the fact that it is indeed...a musical. The heart and soul of this movie is taken from movies such as "Rebel without a Cause", "Casablanca" and "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg". It also has parallels with "Moulin Rouge". It's a good date movie and definitely a must watch for lovers of classic movies.
Phantom Thoughts
La La Land is a movie I didn't have a lot of knowledge about going into it. But I do now. I had to do some research after seeing it. Let me explain: as I sat watching it, it brought me back to when I was a kid, watching old movies with my Dad on the weekends. Although this was a totally new and unique movie, it still was like watching something familiar. Something I've seen before. And as it turns out, that was done on purpose.
Damien Chazelle wrote the screenplay in 2010, but couldn't get it off the ground. However, after the success of Whiplash which he also wrote and directed, La La Land finally landed the backing it needed. His vision for his movie was uncompromising, thankfully so. And that vision is so clear to me: Ryan Gosling's character, Sebastian is obsessed with jazz music the way it's meant to be played, the old style of the music, which is dying. But he sees the beauty in it. In order for others to see the beauty in it, it has to be changed. It has to evolve. The film mirrors this in a beautiful way. It's shot with all the similarities of an old movie, from the wipes to the edits to the pacing and styles to the all-in-one-shot scenes (or at least the illusion of one shot. Some of those are done with almost seamless editing.) It is a remarkable achievement. There are shots that could have been easier to do in the studio that were shot on location with the perfect lighting. They did these dance scenes as many times as they could with that light all in one shot to get it just right. Simply amazing.
Ok. Enough love. Let's get down to it. Ryan Gosling, although the perfect actor for the part of the brooding, closed off Sebastian, for a musical where you have to sing and dance....his performance was a little....flat footed.
And while I give him credit for learning how to play the music on the piano for the role, not knowing how to even PLAY the piano, maybe he should have had someone sing for him.
Emma Stone is tremendous. Seriously. She owned this role like no one could imagine. Her acting is so on point, it seems like she is just living the life we see on screen. It's effortless. And although her singing is not spectacular either, it's just the right amount of emotion for the part of Mia.
Could there be a spoiler for a movie like this? Surprisingly .. yes. And if you haven't seen it yet, stop reading as I will now get into the SPOILER. The ending. I've heard some people bicker about not liking the ending of the movie. But it was brilliant in this regard: as the movie is rolling along in it's classical way of boy meets girl, boy falls in love with girl, boy and girl break up and then boy and girl get back together and live happily ever after....the movie throws a curve ball at the last scene. They don't actually end up together. They move on with their lives in separate directions....because THAT'S what happens in real life. People change, things change and not every love IN your life becomes the love OF your life. There's a whole "Dream Sequence" if you will, that maps out how the typical movie ending SHOULD have played out. (Did you notice that the set they were looking at when Seb first meets Mia in the coffee shop was the set of the dream sequence at the end? No? Hmmmm...maybe you should watch it again then) And that's the same feeling you get when you see an old lover from long ago. It's brief and emotional, but in the end, you are living your life and can't turn back time. Just move forward.
I may sound like I'm praising it a little too much...and maybe I am....but I thought it was brilliant and wonderful and nostalgic all at once.
Until next time, see you in the center seat!
