Review of La La Land (2016) by Irene C — 24 Feb 2017

La La Land is a musical that is written and directed by Damien Chazelle and stars Emma Stone and my man Ryan Gosling.

So a while back in mid-2016 I was scrolling through my YouTube recommendations desperately searching for a new trailer for Suicide Squad (The hype was real) when I came across a trailer for a movie called La La Land. Now of course I knew next to nothing about this movie accept from the fact that it stars Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as the main characters, oh and it's musical. So after that I pretty much just ignored nearly all the marketing for this movie, then I heard that it had been nominated for 30 awards. That and my mom was desperate to see it. So when it came out in the local theatre I used my pocket money to pay for both of us to go see this movie and my god... this movie is AMAZING!!!!

I'm not even kidding here this is one of the greatest films I have ever seen not just out of all the movies I saw in 2016 but one of the greatest films I've seen in years. This is coming from a guy who is really not a fan of musicals but his film was just the literal definition perfection.

There are 2 things that full on deserve praise weather you love or hate the movie. The camera work, the camera work in this movie is just phenomenal; there are so many times in this movie where you will be thinking how the heck they shot that scene. There are some beautiful shots in this movie that literally made my heart skip a couple of beats L,A is just stunning in this movie I loved the way it was shot. All the musical numbers are shot with long extensive shots with some with literally no jump cuts at all, which leads me to the choreography. Holy spagbowl!!! The choreography in this movie is so well done, most of these musical numbers are shot with almost no jump cuts there just long extensive and brilliantly filmed shots, the actors are literally dancing and singing for the entirety of the songs so that in affect is almost 3 minutes and these dance sequences unfold seamlessly. There is one incredible sequence where Gosling and Stone dance in front of an L, A sunset and it's just incredible. And yes the musical numbers as you can imagine are very energetic and really fun to watch. And that is partly due to excellent directing which I'll talk more about in just a second. The set design just adds to the visual beauty of the film. I loved the films use of vibrant and colourful backgrounds at the right moments and everything else from the way the scenes were lit was just amazing.

Pretty much all the songs from this movie have been stuck in my head since Thursday which is when I saw this film. There're that good. I honestly haven't really heard any other songs in a musical that are similar to the ones in this film they're just so unique and memorable.

Damien Chazelle's directing is up there in my top 5. I'm not even joking it's that good. The way he movies the camera in this movie alone is incredible. He tried his absolute best with this movie and it paid off tremendously and the same could be said for the script, the Chezelle's script for this movie might just be one of my favourite Screen plays of all time. This is backed up by some brilliant performance.

Ryan Gosling as usual is fantastic. I really liked how the film explored this character's passion for Jazz, you really feel for this character because he's a very passionate piano player and he can't play what he wants to play because he keeps ending up with jobs where he ends up playing Christmas songs at loads of different restaurants. A lot of his Jokes landed really well, I really like it when you have someone who has one of the straightest faces and have him be the funniest characters and it works so well in this movie.

Emma stone is also great in this movie. Her performance never faltered during the entirety of the films run time. Her character is very sympathetic, she's actress trying to break into the film industry and every attempt at that point really doesn't go well for her but she keeps trying. In that leads me to my favourite part of this movie.

I absolutely loved the romance between these 2 characters. Their romance was just so touching and as well as making for most of the films funniest moments but it felt genuine and surprisingly unpredictable. A lot of romances I see these days feel very predictable and at times clichéd which is something that I criticised the film Passengers for. But this film was just unpredictable with the way it handled the romance which I thought was really refreshing.

La La Land is at it's a core a love letter to people who are passionate about what they do, people who dream who will never stop trying to fulfil that dream, the people who want to succeed in doing what they love, someone is going to do exactly that no matter what people think of them will plot ahead. That's who this movie is aimed at. This movie is in a way grabbing anyone passionate by the shoulders and telling them to go fulfil their dreams. This movie genuinely wants people to fulfil their dreams and I really have to point out this movie is actually made by someone who clearly feels that he has done exactly that and is trying to encourage other people to do the same thing.

I really loved this films message because I'm personally at a stage in my life where I really want to fulfil my dreams and pretty much become successful at what I love doing and what I want to do in the future. And I feel like this film got the message out their better than anything I have really seen before.

And this message is told through fantastic musical numbers that never once got annoying, every time someone started singing it felt like it was just a natural progression of the film it never really felt like it was someone going "hey this is the part where we sing" it just felt natural which is something I usually only feel in animated movies, this movie just has such a real feeling to it.

La La Land is one of the best films I've ever seen, I seriously recommend you get check this movie out guys I'm telling you it will be one of the greatest movie theatre experiences of your life.