La La Land (2016)

I've finally finished waging my internal war on La La Land, which so many reviewers adored and I left feeling a little lukewarm. I loved what it was going for - a “feel-good” musical tale of two flailing creative types trying to make it in LA and their love story - which purposely eschewed a lot of self-awareness and dipped unashamedly into fantasy. It was, technically and conceptually, a beautiful movie - visually satisfying (I loved how saturated all of the colours were), great music, heavily nostalgic, thematically simple - but after hearing such wonderful things, I was left wanting overall. I felt that most of the film’s issues hinged on its third act, which felt discordant and occasionally incoherent.
I don’t mind a outwardly nostalgic film dipping into cliche, but I felt that often La La Land fell a little too far. The initial relationship between Gosling and Stone was tonally great and tooth-achingly sweet, but as conflict arose, cliche felt like it overwhelmed good writing. The whole “why not just write your own roles?’ really prompted an eye roll. I also felt that while the performances were good, I’m not sure that they were necessarily the best performances I’ve seen this year - Emma Stone was charming, as per usual, but I’m not sure I’d say she was Oscar worthy. I’ve never really got Ryan Gosling, but I felt like he was really overshadowed in this movie. I also thought there were seeds of a much more interesting plotline in this movie, where the suggestion of the impossibility of success, maturing, supporting your partner and changing your goals, being realistic, those things became real possibilities. Of course, with the technicolour idealism and fantasy world of the movie, that’s dashed pretty quickly, but I wish it was explored. Rather, we’re given the same making-it-in-hollywood story we’ve seen again and again. At least, with that, it is fun to watch, and it’s a nice ride. An overly long, slightly tired, still-fun ride. It is sure to win a bunch of awards, and it warrants a lot of them. For me, by the third act and that final dip into music as an excuse for someone to create a bunch of visually striking vignettes that had no place in the story but looked cool, I felt a bit too alienated to really be in love.
Not to mention the whole white guy as the savior of jazz music thing. Please. John Legend was the best part of this movie, and he was completely under-utilised in his role. Listening to him perform at the Oscars really just highlighted how much he should have been the lead and sung all the songs and how subpar everyone else was. Also, how much Sing Street deserved an Original Song oscar nod. 
Rating: 6.5/10 - La La Land is beautiful, and will be some people’s idea of a perfect movie. For me, it read as a little stale, and cast chemistry with pretty cinematography wasn’t enough to elevate an enjoyment into anything more. Most of the time when I think of it now, my irritation tempts me to rate it lower, but I'm maintaining objectivity.

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