Zee ♡⃕•̩̩̩༊ `` 🌧..··’s review published on Letterboxd:
𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙲𝚕𝚊𝚜𝚜𝚒𝚌𝚜,
𝚊 𝚂𝚎𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝚘𝚏 𝚁𝚎𝚟𝚒𝚎𝚠𝚜
*⋆.࿐࿔♡༉‧₊˚
La La Land - 2016
Dir. Damien Chazelle
8.29.23 – 4/10
“People love what other people are passionate about.” — Mia
“They worship everything and value nothing.” — Sebastian
I think the quotes above perfectly encapsulates why people blindly love this movie. Overrated, purposefully average. I sadly have to include this in my series of classic musical reviews because of its popularity but I doubt that in ten years anyone would remember this movie or call it classic. Oscars loved it because they love Hollywood circle jerking. Today’s audience of movie goers are so used to the same type of blockbusters—superheros, A24 horror movies, and dull remakes of better movies; When something original and well produced is made, it’s the new comfort movie that’ll get a thousand “movie make brain go burr” tiktok / letterboxd reviews. A fine movie, an average movie. Above average cinematography, very pretty. To call it a masterpiece is objectively wrong.
Humphrey Bogart filmed over there! Insert Bojack Horseman quote: “Uh yeah, where do you think they make movies?”
Two aspiring stars meet. A display of the balance between compromise and success goes on. Mia (Emma Stone) struggles to find work as an aspiring actress. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) finds work as a pianist specializing in jazz, but they’re little gigs that don’t exactly satisfy his dreams of reviving the jazz scene. They strive to live up to their dreams.
And uh… that’s the plot. Nothing wrong with a musical having barely any plot, it’s preferable in delivering exciting and entertaining dance numbers. But this is severely lacking stakes, conflicts, and characters. Besides Mia and Sebastian we have the roommates, then Keith who’s the old friend and opposite of Sebastian, Sebastian’s sister and a brief boyfriend character for Mia to dismiss.
Okay, let me get into the positives because there’s plenty. They don’t save the movie from being average, but they save it from being terrible.
1. Sound design — the director Damien Chazelle’s experience in band jazz and music probably attributes to the attention to detail in his movie’s sounds. I like that he balanced realism and musical magic nicely. Little touches of sound effects like footsteps on the ground, hands banging on a car, or shifting fabrics can be heard with the singing and music. It makes it feel like these songs are apart of the real world which you don’t often see. I think it’s pretty innovative.
2. Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone’s performance — Well, I’m kind of refrained from praising any professional actors from being professional actors because that’s kind of their job. It’s good to notice and point out when they succeed at bringing believable life to a wide range exotic character traits and emotions, display charisma (because you really can’t teach likability), dedicate themselves to making us believe that the characters on screen are real and accomplish impressive stunts. Stunts such as emotional low points to the climaxes, high stamina dialogue, difficult gentle nuances. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone are professionals. They deliver their lines, they can express lots of different emotions and make us empathise with how they move and speak. That is until they try dancing and singing. A lot of you seem content with the fact they tried. I’m not, especially when you know how hard MGM and RKO dancers pushed themselves to absolute perfection movie after movie. Debbie Reynolds was 18, never danced before, and was able to keep up with Gene Kelly and Donald O. Conner in “Singin’ in The Rain”. She dances up stairs, couches, jumped out a cake, did 40 takes of “Goodmornin’” until her damn feet were bleeding, all with the sweetest delightful smile—what’s Ryan and Emma’s excuse for being so slow and basic? I’ll touch on this more in the flaw section of my review. For now, we can all appreciate a likeable and realistic performance. They communicated more character than what was written. Bravo.
3. Colors, Lighting and Visuals — The cinematography is flashy for sure. It can be a little off putting to the more experienced cinephile who isn’t impressed with long takes and camera tricks without any depth or purpose. But to an average audience it’s dazzling—Oh wait let me get back to saying nice things. The colored lighting is really effective and even beautiful. There is a purpose with the color. The characters wear solid colors until intertwined, then the background begins to blend the colors they wear. Green, red, purple and blue are used to light the scenes and it looks really good! I like the California sunsets and pretty nighttime. The neon signs and sunny days go along with that too. Lamps and indoor lighting is subtle and soft, giving the photography a cozy feeling. Nice!
4. Intention. — I commend the movie for paying homage to old Hollywood movies. From the two romantic leads hating each other at first to loving each other, to hundreds of cast members dancing and turning the world into a playground, then an ending with a bang. Does the movie fully deliver on its intentions? Sort of. It certainly includes those tropes but they don’t feel like anything else other than a nostalgia reference. Like in Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The force, lightsabers and storm troopers shooting is included with great production but doesn’t feel anything like the scenes that or wants to recreate. It’s flashy and people like it because “Hey! I know that thing!”. Still, I wanted to like this movie so bad because I’d love for more MGM style musicals to be made. I’m glad that they introduced a new generation to that. So it’s a plus, even if it’s flat in comparison to what inspired it.
5. Jazz simping — I love jazz, I’m biased towards it and judge people who hate it. So I smiled when Sebastian rolled his eyes at the same comments I hear as well.
6. Production Effort. — The production makes a big effort at impacting the audience and for the most part it does work until you start to think about things a little bit other than how good the camera quality it.
That concludes the positives. I’ll say that if you enjoyed this movie then good for you and no critique is gonna change that, nor should it. There are functions of this movie that I understand liking a lot even if I don’t feel anything toward it. If you’re a Ryan Gosling fan, and just like seeing him do a jig then okay! If you liked the sets, music and colors I can see why. It’s very colorful, the ending has well designed backgrounds and the music doesn’t hurt your ears. I see why it could be some people’s favorite movie, why someone would rewatch it a few times during dinner or recommend it to others. It’s accessible, easy to throw on. What I don’t see is why this would ever be called a perfect movie or a masterpiece, why people will die on that hill. I’m telling you, nothing wrong with liking this movie, it’s fine! But I promise you that watching any of the classics this is inspired by will leave you astonished in comparison.
Now to my criticisms : )
1. Romance. To subvert our expectations with Mia and Sebastian not ending up together sounds good in paper. In actuality it’s pretty confused. Firstly, the two characters are sarcastic and dismissive of each other for really weak reasons. I understand why Sebastian acts like a jerk and dismisses Mia and why she’d playfully get back at him. He was frustrated, she got him back for it. Then after he apologizes and she accepts, they start talking to each other and it’s jab after jab, insults and disrespect. Who talks like this? Even in movie-land where you don’t expect realistic conversations you wonder why anyone would be so mean. Maybe the characters are just jerks who look down on people? Why would this be likeable? The chemistry is in the negatives. They meet again, and that’s when we get the “A lovely night” number where they’re supposed to be pretending they don’t like each other while secretly there’s an attraction. To me, because of how dismissive and closed off the two are it feels more like they actually just don’t like each other.
They dance, sometimes in sync but mostly in a low effort, low energy, distant type of way. Feels more like a song about how two characters don’t like each other and wouldn’t want to be around each other again. After this they’re supposed to be more warmed up though. Ryan decides to see her again, I guess he likes the banter. They go on a date, argue some more like an annoying couple that thinks fighting is cute and get to know each other. They part ways and see each other again when Mia ditches a date because she wants to see him. Okay, pause. Now, reader, answer me this: Why does she want to see him again? She is dating some else after all. Doesn’t once say anything positive about Sebastian. For Sebastian, he praises her a lot during their first date. Says she’s interesting, could be a prodigy playwright. She says: she hates jazz and asks what a samba-tampa place is. I guess she liked his approval? Okay, so she goes to the movies with him and they dance in the famous Griffith Observatory. Now they’re in love! Here, we get better displays of romance where they’re nice to each other, encourage each other, believe in the other’s dreams. Awesome. Cut to the emotional low point where they break up. Both of them seem really immature and kind of… dumb? Mia expects him to give up the opportunity of becoming the successful person he wants to be for their relationship without any compromise or understanding. She insults him: “Why do you care so much about being liked?” … He’s a musician? What was the expectation on both of their parts when the other made progress towards their goals? Even a little bit of dialogue would’ve helped make it less jarring. Maybe a quick “Sebastian don’t forget about me when you get successful haha” could hint at what’s to come. But nope, out of nowhere this becomes a conflict that’s never resolved. At least at first she was encouraging and thought he could be really great, though she poked fun at his ideas for a club and what he’d do with it—but never thought of how busy he may be?
Sebastian ends up missing her play that she’s been writing that he’s encouraged without insults or poking fun at her. It’s not his fault that his job kept him late, but she takes her anger at the critique of her play out on him. Okay, that’d be fine if this was ever resolved. Nope, she’s justified because mean old Hollywood had beaten her down. Still, Sebastian goes to find her to tell her that a casting agent thought the play was good and to come in for an audition. He still encourages her when she’s at her lowest. In the end, they both achieve the success that they want and go their separate ways. Okay, good! They seemed to be a doomed couple from the start.
Cut to: the ending number. An entertaining montage with dance sequences but what it represents is the ultimate reason why this romance doesn’t work. The montage shows “what could have been :(” cue the tired heteronormative ideals of happiness. Marriage! Painting the walls of our new home 🥰! Awww! Yay! Don’t you wish this happened instead? What a sad thing they missed out on this! They still love each other!
Or… do they idealise the idea of “what could have been” with no acknowledgement of what went wrong in the first place besides “maybe Sebastian should’ve given up his career for her :/ then they could’ve had a familyyyy!” Orrrrr they both could enjoy the wonderful successful lives that they already have? Why is it framed like giving up and settling was the dreamy option? Why would they want that? Mia is married with a baby of her own, with no indication that she’s unsatisfied with how her life turned out. Sebastian could still be obsessed with her but maybe the movie could have communicated that he needed to move on because he was living in a fantasy but instead we get: The End!
2. The writing. — Everyone is so ridiculously callous. The casting scenes really suck. Can we have any indication as to why they don’t want to hire her? I can only assume it’s because she’s a bad actress. She barely says a few words before they pass her up. Can we get some hint or commentary on how brutal auditions can be? Show something about how LA is superficial and full of nepotism? She should’ve been a bit of a “Joey from friends” type where she actually sucks at acting and goes through a progression where she gets better, good enough to act in her one-woman play and be recognized for her potential in a big movie. Nah, instead make her perfect and the world around her just doesn’t see it. Good writing…? By the way, Emma Stone is hardly mentioned in comparison to Ryan Gosling because her character is flat. At least Sebastian is alrightly written, his storyline is fine. Him and John Legend—I mean Keith—(totally not distracting casting) have a good arc. The scenes with JK Simmons—I mean *checks notes* Bill— feel like they could be apart of a much better movie about a jazz musician who wants to prove himself. However, surrounded by how underwritten the conflicts are doesn’t help his character arc though. He learns to adapt at least. The side characters outside of his story are really two-dimensional. The roommates are there to support Mia. The sister is there to deliver exposition. Mia’s husband is nearly faceless. The themes of the movie are extremely on the nose: success comes at a personal cost. Let’s hammer it in by showing how sad it is the main characters didn’t end up together. That’s it, we’ll take those seven golden globes now!
3. No energy. — It tries to make up for its lack of fun by long one take sequences. Guys… one shots are extremely common in musical numbers. Fred Astaire famously said “Either I dance or the camera does” referring to his preference towards a stationary camera that doesn’t cut away from the fluid performance. That was in the 1930’s. Since then we’ve had hundreds of near Olympic levels of dancers performing everything in one shot. In La La Land it felt like a cheap trick instead of doing anything with it. That leads us into the next point:
4. Boring dancing. — Songs all sound the same. Wooooof, who did this choreography? The footwork from Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone is so lazy and easy. Dancing with the stars looks more impressive. This is just… okay. I was honestly cringing at the attempts. In each musical number besides the end, extras were slowly spinning and did a few jumps. Doing four or five arm swings and leg kicks every 60 seconds. I really felt like nobody had any passion or excitement. The big word here is: lame. Even timid. By the way, it’s cool that Ryan Gosling learned piano in under a year for this movie but I’m pretty sure 75% of the piano playing we hear isn’t his actual playing. I think he learned piano so it would look more realistic on screen. Its convincing but not exciting, he looks so focused on trying to get it right that he has to stop acting.
The music is very basic. I actually watched each number three or four times. Once for the initial reaction, twice for the lyrics, thirdly for the choreography. Each time I was getting more disinterested. The lyrics aren’t very clever. I feel like anybody could’ve written lyrics for these situations. Here I’ll give it a try:
This town can beat you down…
but I get back up and quit my frown!
And I’ll show everyone that I’m not a silly clooooowwwnnn!
The days seem dark and dreary,
Another failure leaves me teary!
But I pick myself up from off the grounnnnnnddd!
See? I wrote that in two seconds and it’s nearly something you’d actually hear in the movie. Just rhyme the last word of the sentence to a standard tune and make it about something vague like finding something new or trying hard. No money lines or anything memorable. Average. How many times can I say average?
4. Marvel movie style self aware sarcastic comedy. — Can this trend please end already? Can characters start being funny without having to be super self aware and sarcastic? Can we get a set up and a punchline? An absurd word or idea played to the max? A reoccurring joke? After watching Donald O. Conner’s physical comedy and Oscar Levant’s dry quick quips AS THEY'RE SINGING, PREFORMING AND PLAYING PIANO leaves you with a lasting impression of their strong characters. I was depressed watching La La Land not even attempt to include humor in its music. No fun. Just sarcasm. How uhm…enjoyable?
Finally, because I’ve gone on long enough to the point where I’m sure nobody is going to read most of this—I watched this movie with hopes it’d be a great example of how musicals in modern day can be wonderful. An ode to old Hollywood! Well, we got shoe horned references to better movies and I ended up really, really bored. Don’t be fooled by the awards. The Oscar academy is known for being outdated and biassed. If you hate musicals you’d actually probably like this since it holds no traits of any good musical. It’s too realistic, bland, with good acting and a flawed script. It doesn’t showcase California or LA very well besides location shots. To preface, I grew up on the west coast and I lived in California for a year and half, visiting countless times since I was a kid. And I’m saying this barely showed anything unique to California besides the observatory and a shot of Ryan Gosling in front of a wall that said “California”. Where’s the orange rustic feel? The superficiality that we love and hate? THE HOLLYWOOD SIGN? The heat, the pastel palm trees, the sun tanned streets and bold fashion? WHY ARE ALL THE COLORS SO DARK WITH HIGH CONTRAST? Navy blues, mustard yellows, forest greens, burgundy red—it’s vivid, but it’s not sunny California.
Overrated 🤕
Over produced 🤒
A C-tier average musical 🤷
Do I recommend it? To any middle schooler who refuses to watch anything made before 1995, yes! Because you know you can’t get them to sit through anything else. To any reasonable adult or older teenager? Watch any of the movies this is based off of and you’ll be in bliss while gaining cultural insight.
