Mattie Lucas’s review published on Letterboxd:
LA LA LAND is a glorious dose of sheer cinematic exuberance. Many critics have compared it to Jacques Demy and Vincente Minnelli (myself included), but on second viewing the standout influence for me was Rouben Mamoulian and Maurice Chevalier - you can almost hear Ryan Gosling crooning "Isn't it Romantic?"
Old Hollywood is embedded in this thing's DNA at every turn (it even throws in an Albert Lamorisse reference at one point for good measure, with just a dash of Busby Berkeley), but it still somehow seems so vibrantly contemporary. This isn't just a film about following your dreams, it's about how those dreams rarely turn out the way we plan them. It's a film about "what ifs" and "could have beens" that never pan out, hanging in the air with a beautifully mysterious sense of unfilled possibility that only the past can give us. Could things have turned out better if we had taken a different road? Or did that road take us right where we needed to be after all? This isn't the fluff piece its critics make it out to be. It's a vital piece of cinema, humming with energy and passion, and an unabashed love not just for the movies, but for what they mean to us. They may skew our expectations, but that may not necessarily be a bad thing. Perfection.
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