The wonderful astonishing opening sequence of a full scale choreographed musical number on a flyover in the middle of an L.A. traffic jam sets the pace for what is clearly one of the most exhilarating movie musicals for years. La La Land is only the third film helmed by 31 year old Damien Chazelle (he picked up an Oscar nomination for Whiplash his last movie) and he successfully creates a contemporary musical that is obviously inspired by all the classic ones of the genre with it’s romantic story full of hope and love.
Amongst the drivers in that traffic jam are Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) who leave the scene angrily honking at each other, not knowing that their paths will soon cross again. Mia an aspiring actress whose bedroom nostalgically has posters of Ingrid Bergman, works at a coffee shop on the Warner Brothers Studio Lot. This is the nearest she gets to actually acting as despite the fact that she is always rushing off for yet another audition, she fails to ever land a part.
On this particular day her rather glamorous room-mates insists that she goes with them to a Hollywood party to cheer her up, and naturally this also serves as a setting for a full-scale musical number around the pool. Afterwards when she finds her car has been towed for parking illegally, Mia decides to walk home. Her route takes her past a restaurant from which she can hear jazz being played, and curious to hear more, she discovers that the player is Sebastian. Before she can even complement him, Sebastian, ever the stubborn purist, storms out having being fired by the restaurant owner for not playing Christmas music as he had been specifically ordered too.
They don’t meet up again until Mia attends another pool party where this time Sebastian is reluctantly playing in a tacky 80’s cover Band. Cue for a very cute big musical number together where the two of them profess that they don’t fancy each other at all, when it is very obvious that is already far from the truth.
Just as Mia dreams of making it big one day, Sebastian has a passion for old-fashioned jazz and desperately wants to open his own club one day, preferably in the premises of what was one of the most famous jazz clubs in town. However neither of them have any ideas of how they will ever achieve their goals, so Sebastian takes a gig playing in a band that he doesn’t particularly like, led by an old colleague (played by John Legend) just to earn some money. It however means that he is constantly touring and this leaves him with hardly any time to make his own music, or be with Mia.
She eventually decides to write her own one-woman-show but not only does this bomb, but Sebastian fails to be there to support her endeavor. Mia takes that as a sign that it is time to leave him, L.A. and her ambitions and call it a day head and back home to her parents.
That would have been the end of the story, but just like in the good old musicals, there is naturally to be a second round. One of the very few people who actually saw her one-woman show was a talent scout who now wants to offer her the lead in new movie. There is a hitch though, it’s going to take six months to film and it will all be shot in Paris, which obviously means leaving Sebastian again, but maybe this time for good.
Fast forward five years and Mia is now a successful film star and Sebastian is just about to open his dream club, and in a charming sequence, Chazelle shows us not just what happened, but also what could have happened, if the two had made other choices.
La La Land may not be a masterpiece but it is nevertheless one of the most entertaining movies of the season. Chazelle makes no pretense that his cast have the technical skills or dancing talents of the likes of Fred Astaire or Ginger Rogers, but both the choreography and singing are performed beautifully and with great style by his two lead actors in particular. Emma Stone in a career-best performance shines so bright in a role that is so perfect for her, that she actually totally eclipses Ryan Gosling which is no mean feat. She has already picked up a Best Actress Award at the prestigious Venice Film Festival, which we confidently predict will be the first of many.
Musicals are a tough genre to get right. For every successful ‘Chicago’ there is a total disaster such as ‘Nine’. Chazelle’s La La Land happily sets its own standard and has enough passion, vitality and sheer joy ……. and Emma Stone ….. to be enthusiatically received and a sure-fire hit.
