19 January 2017
La La Land
A film by Damien Chazelle
reviewed by Adam McCormack
The musical is back. Don’t despair, we are not seeing Hollywood revert to the saccharine-saturated schmaltz of the past, where 2-dimensional characters spontaneously launch into songs that develop the plot not one iota. The opening scenes of La La Land, with young people stuck in a traffic jam in LA getting out of their cars to launch into a song and dance number, left me concerned that we were about to witness a glorified cinematic version of TV’ s Glee, but I need not have worried. What writer-director Damien Chazelle delivers is an intelligent musical with great tunes and characters, and a plot that captivates from the start. However, this is not a reinvention of the musical, but rather a search for all that was good in the golden days of the genre, with the addition of a modern jazz feel.
Yes, the characters do launch into songs, but this is the perfect vehicle for characters to express thoughts that go beyond mere dialogue. A great example comes with A Lovely Night, as the love interest develops between Seb (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) when they dance to a backdrop of a star-lit Hollywood. With lyrics such as: “We’ve stumbled on a view, that’s tailor made for two, what a shame those two are you and me”, this is a song along the lines of, A swell party, or I won’t dance and does not suffer from a comparison to Cole Porter or Oscar Hammerstein.
Seb and Mia may seem like standard characters from old musicals: two people pursuing a dream. Mia is a struggling actor but aspirant playwright; Seb a jazz-obsessed musician with dreams of running his own club. Where this film excels is in the way it takes the characters to a point where there is a chance of realising their dreams and showing how this can compromise their relationship. I would not contemplate spoiling the plot, so will leave it there, but more needs to be said about the performances. Gosling and Stone can sing and they can dance (Stone’s rendition of the show-stopper, The Fools who dream, should silence any doubters) and the jazz piano is good enough to convert the most die-hard of conventional pop fans. Introducing John Legend into the action, as Seb’s band leader Keith, is a stroke of genius in that it helps us to realise that conveying a song is much more about the emotion, as delivered by Seb and Mia, than singing all the right notes with a great tone (as Legend does). You don’t really need me to recommend La La Land, given that it has already won seven Golden Globes, including best director and best musical or comedy film. The only concern I am left with is that this film will be so successful that it will spawn a thousand poor imitations; Glee the film, 1-5, is something that we can all live without.
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