[SPOILER WARNING! This article is meant for readers who have already seen La La Land or for those who don’t care about spoilers. If you haven’t seen the movie and don’t want it spoiled, you might want to bookmark this page for later reading. Thanks!]

After being released in United States theaters on December 9, 2016, La La Land was an instant hit and made a total of about $440 million worldwide! It’s been a few months since it was released and since I attended a few showings. According to IMDb, the movie racked up a total of 223 nominations and won 190 awards - including six Oscars and seven Golden Globes. At the time of writing this article, the DVD is just about to be released! (You don’t need to ask, of course I’m buying a copy.) I mentioned this outstanding film a few times in my early articles, but now I’m finally going to explain why my obsession with this romantic-musical-comedy-drama has yet to die.

The story is honestly so intriguing, I was pulled into the tale from the very start. It follows Mia, an aspiring actress, and Sebastian, a jazz pianist without any gigs. They pass each other on the highway, although the first impressions don’t exactly go too well. Later, after happening to hear Sebastian play at a restaurant, Mia tries to compliment him on his skill on the piano - only for him to storm off without a word. Much later the two run into each other at a party where he’s playing 80’s cover songs. The two of them tease each other at the start, but as they spend more time together they start to grow more and more fond of one another. Mia attempts (and fails, unfortunately) a one-woman play, and Sebastian joins a band but doesn’t really enjoy the pop take on jazz music he has to play. Oh, yeah, and the lead singer of the band is John Legend, by the way. Our protagonists’ relationship gets pretty rocky for a little bit, but then Sebastian gets a call for Mia saying that she’s being offered a role in a movie! He suggests she go after it, even though it requires her moving to Paris. They realize their lives are going in different directions but the two of them promise they will always love each other. The movie jumps forward five years, and we see that Mia has sky-rocketted to absolute stardom, but she is married to another man! She and her husband stumble upon a jazz bar named “Seb’s” and we see that Sebastian has fulfilled his dream of opening an authentic jazz club. There’s a montage as the two imagine what life could have been like for the two of them together but as Mia leaves, the two of them share a friendly smile. I was stunned at the end; I wanted them to be together and live out their dreams as a couple! But the story is really powerful in the way that it shows how sometimes we have to sacrifice for our dreams, and that it might not be exactly what we imagined but that we can still be happy in the end.

Considering this is a musical, the music plays a huge role in the movie. What’s really cool, though, is that music also plays a big part in the story itself! The movie opens with the super-fun song “Another Day of Sun” where drivers, stuck on a sprawling highway, break into song and dance as they recall what brought them to Los Angeles in the first place. There’s the song-and-dance number called “A Lovely Night” where Mia and Sebastian tap dance and confess their initial dissatisfaction with one another. “Start A Fire” features the golden pipes of John Legend and fuses the soulfulness of jazz music with the synth-sounds of modern pop. There is the song “City of Stars” which Ryan Gosling’s character plays on the piano and both his and Emma Stone’s characters sing together. The song has this almost haunting sound to it and still tends to get stuck in my head a lot. And we can’t forget Stone’s song “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” which makes me cry every time I watch the movie - it’s one of the most powerful songs I’ve ever heard. More than just the vocal performances, the various scores throughout the film are also incredible! All of them were composed by a man named Justin Hurwitz, who effectively captures the theme of the movie and creates beautiful music.

I’ve started paying a lot more attention to the cinematography in films lately. La La Land has some of the most beautiful scenes I’ve ever witnessed. There is a dance number where Mia’s roommates are trying to convince her to attend a party (“Someone in the Crowd”): Each room in the apartment has a different color and feel, and each girl has a brightly-colored dress to match. Later there is a scene where Mia and Sebastian are dancing in a planetarium and they seem to magically float into the stars and waltz among the constellations. During the previously-mentioned audition scene, the lights go down and all we see is Emma Stone’s face as she passionately performs her song, the lack of background makes for its own artistic statement and it’s stunning. These scenes were moving, but there were other moments in the movie that stood out to me just as much. I loved when the camera would zoom out on the characters and we would see a wide-angle shot of the buildings behind them.

I was thrilled to hear that La La Land was winning so many awards and titles because this movie was more than another film to me. It was a work of art. How the story and sounds and scenes all blended together just left such an impact on me. Even after all this time, I’m still so in love with this movie. And no matter how many times I listen to the soundtrack or watch the movie, it never loses its shine that I first saw.