2016 has been rough on all of us, though perhaps not as much as on the stars of the year’s most recent masterpiece— “La La Land.” Writer-director Damien Chazelle wowed audiences with “Whiplash” in 2014 (Which was nominated for Best Picture and Adapted Screenplay, and won Best Editing and the award for Supporting Actor, J.K. Simmons). With “La La Land,” not only has he done it again — he’s made an instant classic. Chazelle sets his newest work in modern-day Los Angeles, where it opens on a local traffic jam, filled with talented millennials, performing a somewhat flash mob style celebration of chasing hopes and dreams in the city of angels.
Sharing this optimism is aspiring actress, Mia (played by Emma Stone). When she’s not serving coffee to the very celebrities she longs to work beside, she’s facing rejection after rejection at every audition. For Mia, the allure of Los Angeles is only strengthened with the gaze of aspiring jazz legend, Sebastian (played by Ryan Gosling), a recklessly passionate musician willing to put his craft above his paycheck. Their first encounter was less than romantic, though fated nonetheless, it would seem; the two can’t seem to stop bumping into each other. If the movie hadn’t earned the right to be a musical at the start, it certainly does on the lovely night we find Sebastian and Mia on, facing the sunset over an illuminating L.A.
From here, the two starving artists find in each other more than star-crossed infatuation; they’re both crutches for the other, and while both are pushed to pursue their own crafts, they learn to appreciate the passions of the other just as much. Sebastian brings out the dreamer in Mia, showering her with music and movies, while she introduces a little stick-to-itiveness to him. Their lovely nights becomes cloudy, however, when Sebastian is forced to compromise on his dreams, to the distress of Mia their relationship, and her confidence in herself.
It is these routes in the movie which reminds us of the roads that life takes us on; back and forth, the movie teeters between fantasy and reality, between what is desired and what is received. It’s a two hour long, musically-fueled explanation behind the famous Rolling Stones ballad: you can’t always get what you want, but if you try, you’ll get what you need. This is continually the case in the movie, which highlights the experience of pursuing fortune and glory in Hollywoodland. Perhaps this has to do with Chazelle’s own time in Tinseltown, though it probably appeals to a larger pathos; anybody who’s ever chased a dream has probably caught up to rejection a few times. Often enough, the road to what we want requires a few detours. In “La La Land,” these detours are merely the facts of love and life.
By the end of the film, we’ve been constantly reminded that fact and fiction are equally important in forming your craft. Mia needed a dreamer to chase her dreams, and Sebastian needed a realist to make his dreams become real. Chazelle has made a musical that knows its a musical, both in form and in function. The stories are real, but their meanings are simply extraordinary, just as Mia and Sebastian’s shared journey was both fantastical, yet completely ordinary. Thanks to the hopeful outlook she took from Sebastian, Mia’s realism brought her everything she ever wanted, just as her tenacity helped Sebastian realize his dreams.
“La La Land” doesn’t claim to be anything new. If anything, it assumes just the opposite. The struggles of an artist have always been real, just as the beauty of song has been. The movie isn’t great because it’s fresh, rather it puts into song and screen something we all knew, but had never been so dazzled by before. Life is just as much about dreams as it is about waking up, and thankfully we have movies to show us a little bit of both. They just don’t make them like this, anymore.
“La La Land” is playing in select theaters now.
