La La Land
Tony (tectactoe)

Review by Tony (tectactoe)

La La Land 2016

★★★★

[78]

Magical, really. Saw this the week after my wife and I got married and she had gone home for the weekend to visit her parents (out of state). So perhaps I was in a sort of fugue state at the time, where just about anything would've seemed impossibly blissful and pleasant, but there's such a liveliness to this thing that's becoming increasingly rare in films nowadays. Was kind of timid after the opening musical number on the highway, thinking it'd be nothing but swooping, camera-trickery set pieces nonstop, but things begin to jell quite nicely after after the first 20-ish minutes. I don't find the amateur-ish performance aspects of Gosling and Stone to be hampering like some others do -- after all, they're both operating under aspirations and Big Dreams, neither of them a tried and true "professional" within the context of the film : to my mind it adds a delicate layer of intimacy and sort of reinforces the message a bit. Too surreal a few times (the observatory / Star Dance sequence sticks out like a sore thumb) but the epilogue is both heartbreaking and tender, a simultaneous gut punch and self-analytical assessment of sacrifices we've endured to achieve what we have. Plus, I often prefer more "realistic" garnishes to inconceivably smarmy "happy endings." A sly nod to CASABLANCA, if anything, and goddamn this film is full of eye candy, some of the best use of filtered lighting in recent times that's coming to mind.

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