La La Land

La La Land (2016)

93% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 331 reviews)

Runtime: 128 minutes

Directed by: Damien Chazelle

Starring: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend, Rosemarie DeWitt, Finn Wittrock

From: Summit Entertainment

Most people love this movie, I know that for certain. I can only say I liked it, as it is charming and it looks real nice. Unfortunately, the plot... I explain it below: 

It wasn't until Saturday night that I finally saw this heavily-hyped movie, which most have fallen in love with and because it's the Oscars and they are usually easy to predict, this probably will win Best Picture this upcoming Sunday. I wish I could say that I love this too, but... hopefully I don't sound like a gigantic grinch or a Lee Chandler come to life; this is honestly how I feel.

Everyone knows how this is a musical about the ill-fated love story between Sebastian and Mia, and how they deal with being a musician/hopeful jazz nightclub owner and actress, respectively. The movie certainly looks pretty with plenty of memorable moments and scenes (even though there is a LOT of navel-gazing going on), a pleasant-enough score and song and dance numbers where it's not as great as it was “back in the day” but it was still acceptable for my tastes.

Unfortunately, aside from it making me wish I'd watch or rewatch various old musicals where the leads do the song and dance better and feature choreography that will blow you away, it is more than a slight problem when the big relationship between the two leads, I did not really care about. It's difficult to conceptualize into words, but it did not enrapture me. I thought the leads were dopey, sometimes pretty annoying and did a lot of dumb things. For the movie's sake, I hope that the reason why the story sometimes is really dumb or makes no sense is because the director decided to slavishly follow the cornball and silly plots that plenty of those old genre pictures had too.

I mean, at times I wondered why a cell phone wasn't used... while it has plenty of pandering to old movies/a retro aesthetic, it is still set in modern times and smartphones are seen being used by the leads. I can't explain why Mia is unfamiliar with the concept of musicians going on tour. Not to mention, I was begging for more music during the second act, as I thought it would have been better than watching some hoary dramatics taking place. Aside from the problem with our protagonists, John Legend is in a supporting role and everything about his character is confused; his music is commercial but it's not an abomination as the film seems to suggest. Others have noted this, and it's odd, really.

I wish I could have loved this like everyone else does. It certainly is charming overall and has great visuals throughout. It just did not blow me away or work its magic on me like it has for the movie-going public in general. While I don't regularly watch old musicals I certainly appreciated the idea of bringing them back, and jazz music is pretty cool... even if it's a white hipster singing its praises. The final number, it was greatly and at times brutally effective and it did make me feel melancholy as I was reminded of certain things that happened in my life. Even then, I can only say this was “fine” when I look at the film as a whole. At least that dark blue fridge at the end and the KEYTAR were cool, admittedly....