The Magic's In The Music
We all have dreams that we hope come true. Damien Chazelle's second feature film, Whiplash, focuses on the relentless dedication it can take to make that happen. It's tense, brutal and mesmerizing. La La Land is Chazelle's charming, romantic and gorgeous ode to finding that special person in your life who helps you reach for the stars. It's an impeccably crafted, original musical about two artists in Los Angeles who fall in love and are encouraged by each other to keep on dreaming and striving to get what they've always wanted.
Emma Stone is Mia, an actress struggling to catch a break after countless auditions for projects she doesn't believe in, and Ryan Gosling is jazz pianist Sebastian, who wants nothing more than to play the music he loves in a club of his own. They make an incredibly watchable pair—both as actors and characters—with each possessing a terrific feel for comedy. In a scene where Stone surprises Gosling preparing dinner, the way he jumps at the sight of her suggests he has a Dick Van Dyke-like knack for physical comedy just waiting to be unleashed. Though neither Stone nor Gosling can belt a song at Broadway levels, they carry their tunes with true feeling, succeeding in much the same way Fred Astaire did as a singer.
Immense credit must be given to composer Justin Hurwitz and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul, who crafted the timeless music performed by Stone, Gosling and company. Hurwitz's melodies and orchestrations hit their target so directly that they play more like the lost soundtrack to a classic MGM musical than contemporary compositions, not to mention that they're critical to the narrative. Cahzelle's screenplay and camera work wonders for the story he tells in La La Land, but more than anywhere else, the characters are developed in the music. The film's freeway-bound opening number is a mission statement for the inhabitants of its romanticized Los Angeles, and every number that follows digs deeper into who Mia and Sebastian are as individuals and what they mean to one another. By the time "The End" flashes on screen, the film's themes, both musically and narratively, have been fully developed and executed to near perfection.
Guiding everything with a master's touch is Chazelle, who never wastes a frame filled with cinematographer Linus Sandgren's rich, colors. Chazelle moves his camera in perfect sync with the music and dancing. The frame spins, pans, and even flys when necessary, imbuing the film with a visual momentum and beauty. However, Chazelle also knows not to overpower a scene with elaborate camerawork. Late in the film, Stone is given a showcase song that could well earn her an Oscar, and the scene works because Chazelle knows to give her the stage with little visual accompaniment. The camera and lights don't have to do much when the song and singer are as good as they are in that moment.
La La Land is an example of a cast, director, and composer working in perfect unison, and it shows. I actually had to see the film twice for its magic to work on me. The visuals of the film demand such attention that I failed to really, truly listen to the lyrics in the songs, because Chazelle (rightly) doesn't provide redundant dialogue to supplement the music; with such a large amount of the characters' wants and feelings solely in the songs, I missed out on the film's most essential emotional beats. La La Land isn't a difficult piece of art to enjoy, but it reveals its best self to an attentive audience.
Take "Someone in the Crowd," a song Mia's roommates sing to coax her out to a party. It pokes fun at the showbiz notion that you could be discovered anywhere. The trick the movie pulls is making that person Sebastian. He's not a casting director or a studio executive; he's more important than that. He's that special person that Mia needs to help her become someone who's ready to be discovered. And she's the same for him; an encouraging rock who helps remind him of what he really wants. La La Land is less about being a dreamer than it is about finding a kindred dreaming spirit. Having someone believe in you and understand who you are and what you want can be all that's missing in your struggle to make your dreams come true. Encapsulating that with such pep and heart makes La La Land one for the ages.