Not quite the masterpiece I had built it up to be in my head, but a valiant and commendable effort from Chazelle.

Everyone and their mum seems to be writing about this film on here, so bear with me, I fee like I might have something slightly different to say.

Positives: The two leads are absolutely fantastic in both how they're written and performed. Gosling has the makings of a classic leading man. Charming, witty, and earnest. Stone and her character are able to stand alongside him in their own way, which is a step ahead of a some of the musicals of old (and films of today), in which the lead female character sometimes takes a back seat. This film does a fine job in therms of balance, and in treating these two characters as equals, making it appeal to all.

Leading up to this I'd heard that The Umbrellas of Cherbourg was one of the largest inspirations for this, and having watched it yesterday, it's extremely evident, and in a lot of ways this is what you'd get if you took that original vision and made it today. So in this we have beautiful production design with a dazzling array of bold and memorable colours on screen, a certain structure that serves the story well, and an honest story of two extremely relatable characters and their dreams.

Negatives: I'm a little disappointed that you could take out some of the biggest numbers in this and the emotional journey, for both the audience and the characters, wouldn't be all that different. They start off great, with explosions of expression that don't for a second lose your attention, but as we progress there's less and less of that. The whole middle portion of the film really feels disconnected from the genre, but maybe this a consequence of it being a contemporary film, or maybe even internal given the direction the plot is headed. Only really in the first and last acts do we reach the heights of what I have come to expect from musicals. I know the middle point in a story is supposed to be lowest, but I just feel that there was room for a few more numbers. But hey, at least the story we did get there was quite good.

Another thing I felt that this was missing was dancing. This might be because in the musicals I've seen we normally have the classic showmen like Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire, but here only in one scene in particular do I remember the choreography being standout, which is why it's the most memorable, and probably my favourite scene. I would give the opening sequence a pass for this, since it's a very large ensemble, but then I think of West Side Story and how incredibly well composed those sequences are. So I don't really know why this was, but a part of me guesses that again it's purely because it's a contemporary film and Chazelle didn't want to over do it, which is a damn shame. Also in being a musical film that is also, partially, about music itself, one of the main motifs gets a little tiresome towards the end.

So, to conclude... This is a fine attempt and decent execution in what is an exercise in both celebrating this dead genre, while giving it a bit of a modern flair which sometimes leaves just a bit more to be desired.