La La Land

I've been looking forward to this movie since I first saw the trailer. Two of my favourite actors starring in a musical, the line "why do you say romantic like it's a dirty word?", it's tailor made for me. It's as much about the clash between personal and professional ambition as it is Hollywood, romance, or jazz.

Ryan Gosling plays Sebastian, a struggling jazz pianist who dreams of owning his own club and playing the kind of jazz he wants to play, to people who love it as much as he does. In a time of hopelessness and cynicism, his passion is uplifting. It's cool and good to be passionate about things, whether it's niche or mainstream: be unapologetic in your love for whatever it is that you find enjoyable. His backwards-looking views on jazz can get a bit 'old-man-yells-at-cloud' as his friend Keith asks "How are you going to be a revolutionary if you're such a traditionalist?", but in the end, he knows what he likes and it's not this.

Emma Stone is Mia, an actress by way of barista. When she's not working at the WB coffee shop, she's getting repeatedly overlooked in auditions. Mia & Seb meet a few times before they click, but when they do, their relationship intensifies at a pace familiar only to other movie-couples and my fellow U-Haulers - "Is this the start of something wonderful and new / or one more dream that I cannot make true". Stone manages to breathe more life into her character than the script seems to allow for. While the film revels in its use of tropes, cliches and nods to other works, it does feel that Mia was constructed entirely from them while Seb at least has some concrete characterisation that Mia was lacking. I wanted to see more of Mia and have her fleshed out more - instead the majority of the scenes Mia & Seb share are told from his point of view. It's too much about his sacrifice and struggles, spending some more time on the impact Seb's actions have on Mia could have given the film even more emotional depth. 

I can't really make any technical comments on the singing and dancing elements, except to say that for me, Stone carried each duet, especially City Of Stars.

Stand-out performances from the leads and songs that will stick with me for a long time to come mean that, despite some failings in the writing, I'd recommend this as a must-see to anyone.

"People will come because you're passionate about it. 
People love what other people are passionate about."