*spoilers ahead*
La La Land has dominated the 2017 award circuit. The film has amassed 14 Oscar nominations and cleaned house at the 74th Golden Globe Awards stealing all 7 of the awards it was nominated for. This cinematic musical adventure perfectly captures the essence of a performer’s reality: the thrill, the passion, the heartbreak, the rejection - it has it all. The over-arching plot line in this electrifying story is the struggle working artists face of maintaining a stable romantic relationship and the chilling reality that you may not have what it takes to make it in “The Biz.”
The story centers around a struggling actress named Mia who runs into a suave, aspiring jazz pianist named Sebastian who dreams of opening his own jazz club. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s characters both save and destroy each other. Mia finds Sebastian during a time in her life when she needed a spark to give her a reason to love herself again. She found herself drowning in the despair of being rejected at audition after audition, and her resistance was beginning to crack. Enter Sebastian. She realizes there is more to life than just auditioning and rekindles her passion for performing and for life as well. This essence is perfectly captured in the song “City of Stars” where she finds that her “dreams are finally coming true” in a city where “all [people] are looking for is love from someone else.” Maybe, love doesn’t have to come from a cheering crowd throwing roses after all.
However, with any relationship - or dream for that matter - reality always takes its toll. Although the title suggests that the characters are in fact living in a “la la land” of their own, the struggles they face are very real. Sebastian compromises his dream to obtain a stable job that he believes will win him a higher favor in his love’s eyes. Meanwhile, Mia puts on a one-woman show that Sebastian convinces her to produce which in turn fails miserably. Distance and petty arguments derail the couple’s chances causing the spark that brought them together, kept their dream alive, and essentially their will to continue in the business to "die with a flicker."
For aspiring performers on the brink of entering the real world, this movie is terrifying. It perfectly encapsulates what they want to say when people ask what their plans are. Most of the time, the plan is just playing the waiting game while finding a gig and it drives them absolutely mad. Relationships are another beast entirely. Performers might not know where they may go next or when they will see their loved ones again. The entire movie I watched as the relationship between the two lovers was planted, blossomed, and then wilted and died, for the sake of both of their careers. However, it was the song “The Fools That Dream” that made it all worthwhile and showed the flower slowly reaching up out of the rocks. It provided that flicker that fuels the fires of hope in a world that makes “La la land” seem like something to be scorned instead of admired.
In the end, both the dreamers got what they wanted. Mia became a successful actress, and Sebastian opened his jazz club he had been dreaming of. But it was not by coincidence. As Aristotle says, ”Excellence is never an accident. It is always the result of high intentions, sincere effort, and intelligent execution. It represents the wise choice of many alternatives-the choice, not chance, determines your destiny”. Although both of the characters worked extremely hard for what they wanted so desperately to get, their relationship eventually faded away, only becoming a distant “what if?” Be that as it may, at the end of the movie, they both smiled at the “someone in the crowd” that inspired them to reach for their dreams.
"Here’s to the fools who dream. Crazy as they may seem. Here’s to the hearts that ache. Here’s to the mess we make."
