5 Out of 5 Stars
The most difficult thing about homages and love letters is sometimes a film can get so wrapped up in trying to be the thing, it forgets to be its own thing. Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) masterfully avoids this pitfall using a comprehensive understanding of the musical genre and the films within it to craft a truly magical film that owes a great debt to those that came before it.


La La Land opens in Philly Friday and takes place in LA as a Jazz pianist and an aspiring actress have a happenstance run in on a busy highway, he honks his horn and she flips him the bird. After they happen into each other again and again we finally have the spark that develops into the kind of love story, which could only be captured in musical form. Both are dreamers, he wants to open his own Jazz club and she wants to actually land an acting gig, while still managing day jobs and a well of self doubt.


From the grand opening musical number on a gridlocked LA freeway Chazelle quickly establishes a new musical language of the film, which while rooted in the classics, still features a very distinct modern flavor. Our protagonists Sebastian and Mia played by Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone now in their third film together show an effortless chemistry on screen that is a throw back to some of the great couples of the silver screen. While Stone is simply amazing as Mia, it’s Gosling who surprised me the most as the curmudgeonly comedic jazz obsessed Sebastian, who refuses to give up no matter what.

Even though the film is a musical there is an underlying reality in the love story that feels at times intimate and autobiographical, this is definitely thanks to one huge influence on the film Jacques Demy’s The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. It’s that kind of sincerity that grounds this story as we find out there is possibility that this wont end in happily ever after. Damien Chazelle fuses the musical with the indie drama to give us something very different, yet still managing to hit those same beats. La La Land is sublime cinema in its purest form. It’s a film that dances across the screen with pure joy and color, the way the best cinema should, leaving you with a song in your heart and a spring in your step.