There are two things in this world that I love more than life itself. One is coffee, the other is musicals. So, going to see 'La La Land' over the break reaffirmed my love of musicals, but it also made me fall even more head over heels in love with Emma Stone. She can sing, she can act, she can dance, she's hilarious, she's my dream girl. Something about her performance in 'La La Land' made her even dreamier, which is the perfect word to describe the film: dreamy.
I was excited about 'La La Land' as soon as the trailer came out. Not only did it have Emma and Ryan Gosling, that beautiful bastard, but it also had songs written by one of my favorite contemporary musical theatre duos: Benj Pasek and Justin Paul. Pasek and Paul are the creative duo behind musicals such as 'Dogfight', 'A Christmas Story' (which earned them a Tony nomination) and the current Broadway hit 'Dear Evan Hansen', starring Ben Platt, Benji of "Pitch Perfect" fame (which, in my humble opinion, will earn them a Tony Award this year, but we'll get to that later). Waiting in a line (around the block, mind you) to see this film was well worth it.
I'm a loud movie watcher. I usually have some sort of snarky retort or some sort of comment in regards to what has just happened. Watching the opening number of 'La La Land', which consists of people dancing on LA freeways and on cars and all of that, made my jaw drop. I forgot that I was watching a movie for a minute there and in all my years of movie watching, that has never happened. I spent the entire film watching the screen in a dream like state and coming out of the movie, I felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my chest.
The movie itself reminded me of the old movie musicals I grew up watching in all of their Cinemascope glory. The thrill of seeing Gene Kelly swing around a lamppost in 'Singin' in the Rain', the vivid yellow backdrop and reveal of Bali Ha'i in 'South Pacific', the opening sequence of 'The Sound of Music' with Julie Andrews twirling in the hills, etc. It felt warm and comfortable. But, what makes 'La La Land' stand out from other movie musicals is that it didn't shy away from the uncomfortablity of the life of a performer. Many musicals have the sugar coated resolution (boy gets girl, town gets saved, someone finds the error of their ways, all that jazz). 'La La Land' had a happy ending (dependent on how you look at it), but the entire movie showed the side of performers that no one ever focuses on: the quest for integrity, the heartbreak of being so close, but so far, the anger of being good, but not good enough. That made the movie go from good to great, in my humble opinion.
The story was excellent, the songs were lovely, the instrumentals were gorgeous and lush, the whole thing was the kind of the ending I needed for 2016 and the start I needed for 2017. Emma Stone sings "Here's to the ones who dream" in her song "Audition" in the film, and that, in a nutshell, is what I hope 2017 gives me: more opportunities to dream.
