Film Review | La La Land🎹

*This review does contain a few spoilers*

‘Here’s to the ones who dream / Foolish as they may seem. / Here’s to the hearts that ache. / Here’s to the mess we make.’

 
I watched La La Land this weekend after seeing countless reviews and advertisments about this film. I genuinely knew NOTHING about it, I didn’t even know it was a musical until I started watching it. 

The problem I find with highly reviewed movies is that my expectations are always incredibly high and 90% of the time, I end up disappointed. 

The storyline revolves around Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) who both live in LA in hopes of following and achieving their individual dreams. Mia wishes to be an actress and goes to countless auditions only to be keep being knocked down, showing the sheer reality of how tough the film industry can truly be. Sebastian wishes to open up his own Jazz club to drive his passion for the classic music onto the local residents and tourists however in the process of trying to save money for his club, he joins a touring band and settles for something less than his dream. 

Mia and Sebastian meet and click after a number of attempts and they fall in love hard and fast. For one reason or another they unfortunately end up breaking up and going their seperate ways. This film portrays the harsh reality of relationships instead of the usual ‘happy ever after’ we see the majority of the time.

The music and the soundtrack in this film is phenomenal. I cannot fault it. From the  fun opening scene where everyone jumps out of the cars whilst in a traffic jam on the freeway to sing and dance together to the dramatic solo performed by Mia at an audition, the music really hits your emotions hard and captures you in the moment with the lyrics. 

All of the settings have a 1950’s feel about them which runs parallel with Sebastian’s love for Jazz music and the choreography of the dance moves throughout the movie, which again I cannot fault. 

I can completely understand why this film has won so many awards, it is a complete masterpiece in itself. Ryan & Emma have sublime on-screen chemistry   and their love story is heartbreaking, however I personally felt like this film needed something more. The story is quite vague and there isn’t much excitement within the movie. I felt like I couldn’t emotionally connect to the charcters and that disappointed me whilst I was watching. 

Overall, I can see this film being very popular for years and years to come, like one of the old school classics such as ‘Sound of Music’. It is beautiful to watch and it does deserve the awards that it has won.

 

Rating from me: 6/10

 

Have you seen La La Land? What did you think?

L xx