La La Land
Director: Damien Chazelle
Stars: Ryan Reynolds, Emma Stone, John Legend
Five stars
The eye-popping, heart-lifting La La Land honours and modernises the screen musical to such joyful effect that you might find yourself pirouetting home from the multiplex.
Or not, because this film, written and directed by Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) and featuring the dream pairing of Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, is not for everyone.
If you don’t like music, singing, dancing, romance or love. Or sunsets, primary colours or pastels. Or stories. Or, heck, the movies themselves. If you don’t like any of these things, stay home. Otherwise, be prepared: by the end, tears will flow.
The first obvious gift La La Land gives us is sheer originality. Let us start with the music. Unlike in so many other films, nobody else's hits are used here. The affecting score is by Justin Hurwitz, with lyrics by Benji Pasek and Justin Paul (also responsible for Broadway's Dear Evan Hansen) .
Our setting is Los Angeles, and so the story begins on a jammed road, where the drivers brush off their frustrations, exit their cars, and break into song and dance. This virtuoso number, Another Day of Sun, establishes Chazelle's high- flying ambitions – and introduces our main characters.
Sebastian (Gosling) is a struggling jazz pianist, with stubborn dreams of opening his own club. Mia (Stone) is an aspiring actress, working as a barista while auditioning for TV roles.
They clash on the road and have another bad meeting at a piano bar. Their paths cross again, this time at a party. Suddenly, they find themselves on a bench overlooking the Hollywood Hills at dusk. And then ... they dance.
Is it like Astaire and Rogers? Yes and no. Stone and Gosling are charming musical performers, but less polished and ethereal than their film forebears. This human quality in their first duet makes us cheer for them.
And we keep on cheering. It is hard to imagine more perfect casting. Gosling’s Sebastian is suave and sexy but also ornery and unsure of himself. Stone’s Mia is warm and ebullient but also fretful and self-doubting. They need each other to chase their respective dreams.
But what will success mean, and can they possibly achieve it together? This lends the story a very modern, melancholy bite.
Chazelle shows his love of cinema with references, sly and overt, to classics such as Singin' In the Rain and Jacques Demy's The Umbrellas of Cherbourg.
As Sebastian says to his sister: “You say ‘romantic’ like it’s a bad word.”
In a musical, romantic is never a curse.
La La Land will be in UAE cinemas from December 29
* Jocelyn Noveck / AP
