Directed by – Damien Chazelle
Starring – Ryan Gosling; Emma Stone; John Legend; J.K Simmons; Rosemarie DeWitt; Callie Hernandez; Jessica Rothe & Sonoya Mizuno.
It’s safe to say the back end of 2016, La La Land has been one of the most hyped films within movie space, it’s the darling of film festivals around the world and critics have loved it. However, when I was waiting for my first screening (I’ve seen it twice) during the London Film Festival I wasn’t sure if I’d like it. Mainly because I’m not a fan of musicals and hate jazz.
La La Land tells the story of an aspiring actress Mia (Stone) and Seb (Gosling), a jazz musician down on his luck. They meet and fall in love and all the while pursuing their dreams and the ups and downs that occur.
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It’s a simple story, but it’s a wonderful and utterly magical film. It’ll go down as one of the greatest experiences watching a movie and will go down as an all-time classic.
The opening number is the greatest opening to any film with a fantastic song that will make you smile straight away. The explosion of different colours and the single long shot makes you feel a part of it; it’s like a sugar rush.
La La Land is a love letter to multiple things, LA/Hollywood, to everyone to follow your dreams and it’s Chazelle’s love letter to filmmaking of the past with nods towards musicals of the 40/50’s and silent cinema.
Stone is the leading MVP of the movie, her wide-eyed looked to the world and wit makes her an incredibly likeable character. While Gosling is unlikeable a bit of a prick and closed off to people and you can see he’s hurting, but he uses humour to push his feelings down. Yet has the film moves on, you can feel sympathy for him.
Gosling’s face acting is also superb and he can tell a lot from his face alone and one scene you can see the pain and heartbreak and its heartbreaking.
Stone and Gosling’s chemistry is off the charts, they bounce incredibly well off each other. I honestly think Stone is the frontrunner in the Best Actress race for the Oscars and Gosling will be nominated in the Best Actor category.
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Chazelle will be the front runner for the Best Director during award seasons because, besides his love letter to past filmmakers, he got incredible performances from Stone and Gosling, told a beautifully simple and some of the singular shots were executed perfectly.
I could talk about the music and how wonderful and magical it is alone and Justin Hurwitz has done a brilliant job and I’ve been listening to the soundtrack non-stop, I’m listening to it as I’m writing this review.
The stand out songs includes the opening number, City of Stairs and Seb and Mia’s theme is amazing for the sole reason it took Gosling three months to play the piano.
All there’s left for me to say is this film is a sweet-hearted, happy, sugar rush of a film and it’ll make you feel warm this winter.
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Verdict
This is one of the best films of the 21st Century and a classic for decades to come. Everything from Stone, Gosling, Chazelle and the music is incredible.
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