Backward and In Heels

Movies: La La Land

I feel a tinge of envy when I think that director Damian Chazelle is only one year older than me and yet has directed two masterful films--Whiplash and La La Land--and one film that I can only assume is also pretty good (Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench). The man's a prodigy!

I was blown away by Whiplash, tied for my favorite movie of 2014 (with Wild), the nerve-shredding film about a fanatic drummer and his abusive teacher. La La Land is a comfy pair of pajamas compared to that film: easy on the eyes, ears, and soul.

Starring Emma Stone, who looks increasingly alien with her extremely large, wide-set eyes, and Ryan Gosling ("That Ryan Gosling is so cute" --my mom) as an aspiring actress and aspiring jazz pianist respectively, La La Land is a tribute to old school Hollywood musicals with a modern setting. Set pieces include a song and dance number during a traffic jam, a post-party soft shoe dance complete with the characters, Mia and Sebastian, teasing each other not-so-nicely (recalling the similar "I hate you, but you're cute" chemistry between Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers in films like Top Hat and The Gay Divorcee), and a breathtakingly beautiful dance between the lovers among the stars at the Griffith Observatory.

I really, really enjoyed La La Land although I wasn't completely blown away by it as some critics/viewers were. I will say that there were a couple scenes that really wormed their way into my cold, black heart, such as the scene where Mia and Seb hold hands for the first time--sexiest scene in a movie this year that didn't contain sex. And the final scene, which will leave audiences' hearts throbbing, took what could have been an average love story to new and different heights.

Chazelle deserves great praise for simply being able to pull off a musical--one of the most difficult and polarizing film genres, in my opinion. Musicals can so easily be terrible and even good ones are not universally liked. For example, I was left totally cold by the Oscar-winning 2002 film Chicago, but I loved the controversial Tim Burton-directed Sweeney Todd. For Chazelle to not only direct a beautiful, touching musical, but one that is as close to universally liked as a film can get (it currently has a 93 score on Meteoritic), is an amazing feat.

It's hard to say where my slight hesitation with La La Land lies--probably somewhere in the philosophical stance the film takes on what it means to "follow your dream". Sebastian dreams of opening his own jazz club where he and others can play old school jazz. But he takes a paying gig in a modern jazz band called The Messengers that mixes classic jazz sound with modern beats and auto-tuning-type stuff (forgive my lack of language to describe music). When the band becomes successful and Seb prepares to travel with them for an indefinite time period, Mia questions whether he is actually "following his dream". There was something about La La Land's uncompromising stance on what it means to have a dream and what success looks like (it must be exactly as you picture it, goddamnit!) that made me roll my eyes a bit. Although both Mia and Seb endure rocky roads to get there, they both achieve their dreams in a hilariously short period of time. I guess La La Land takes the fantasy of Hollywood the full nine yards!

There was also something that felt weird about how Seb is the one white guy in The Messengers, and yet he's presented as the only one whose heart lies with "real" jazz...a musical genre created by black people. La La Land walks a fine line between suggesting that this white guy is a more of a true, pure musician than his fellow (black) band members and trying to show that sometimes just taking a paying job and actually compromising might be a good thing (white and/or artistic and/or male people seem to have trouble with compromise sometimes). In any case, it was something that bothered me a little.

But overall, La La Land is a joy to experience, from its clever and lovely tunes to its beautiful cinematography to its three-hankie ending. Gosling and Stone have undeniable chemistry and musical chops and Chazelle is a confident and sure-handed director. It will be exciting to see what magic he creates next.

Grade: A