Over the past few months, I've noticed a rather peculiar negative reaction to La La Land. I get the idea of hype killing a good movie and all; but, rarely have I seen a vocal subsector of the online film community go from calling a film merely overrated to outright bad or even awful. Now, after watching for the third or fourth time, I can confidently say that La La Land is still a marvelous film.
From a technical perspective, this is about as close to flawless as movies get. The production design is top-notch, the fluid cinematography is beautiful, the score is emotional and memorable in ways few scores have been in recent cinema. Of course, the two leads give stellar performances. While the character of Sebastian could've easily been smarmy and insufferable if portrayed by another thespian, Ryan Gosling imbues with him with enough sly charm and raw charisma to where you're left wanting to root for him instead of wanting to smack him upside the head. To be honest, little needs to be said about Emma Stone's Oscar-winning performance. She really does a bang-up job of believably portraying a character with a true sense of passion and sincerity. Even some of the film's biggest detractors can at least admit that this is a fantastically well made picture, if nothing else.
Yet, none of that would matter if the music wasn't up to snuff. Thankfully, that isn't the case. Aside from Justin Hurwitz's ethereal score, the musical numbers are all aces. "Another Day of Sun" serves as a wonderful way to kick things off. "A Lovely Night" absolutely nails being the embodiment of what the movie in general is going for (i.e. being a well-done homage to Golden Age Hollywood musicals). "City of Stars" and "Audition" both work extraordinarily well as the tunes that will arguably be the most iconic parts of the movie outside of a few striking images. I could go on about the music in La La Land all day; but, I'll just say that the soundtrack is just great.
Ultimately, I think that people will come back around towards showering this movie with well-earned praise once the dust settles and the hype finishes dying down. The only thing I regret regarding this movie is making my Best of 2016 list before I saw this film. Because if that were the case, then this would easily be in the top five of that list and easily among the best musicals of the past twenty years.
LA LA LAND gets an...
EXCEPTIONAL out of TEN
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