When the lights turned down in the theater and those first upbeat beats danced across the screen, it forced a smile to my face. I couldn’t help it. What I was seeing was such a definitively peppy, colorful, purely happy scene; I had to smile. And frankly, I had no problem letting something so positive bring a smile to my face.

I get that this sounds dopey, but the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences happens to agree with me, granting Damien Chazelle’s La La Land a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations.

The scene opens much like I just described, a burst of color and a whole lot of optimistic prancing about. Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring Los Angeles actress, recently transplanted from Nevada, working her way up from the bottom as a barista. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a down-on-his-luck jazz musician, scrapping together gigs wherever he can while he dreams of opening his own jazz club. Through a series of chance encounters the two become intertwined and together attempt to navigate the rough-and-tumble Hollywood scene and the potentially deadly fame and fortune that comes with success.

I glow about this movie for a number of reasons. For one, I am an admirer of Chazelle’s work. His critical hit (also perhaps not so coincidentally about jazz) Whiplash was one I considered one of the best of 2014, far superior to that year’s Oscar Best Picture winner (no offense Michael Keaton). Chazelle always seems to put forward not only some of the best music to grace the screen, but also manages to capture an inspiring anecdote about life along the way. But it’s not just because of the work of one of Hollywood’s brightest filmmaker’s that I think La La Land is so phenomenal.

I don’t know about you, but my 2016 was filled was all sorts of ups and downs. From a global perspective the spread of the Zika virus and the deterioration of the situation in Syria, not to mention the recent divisive presidential election and the slew of celebrity deaths, all mean 2016 is definitely not winning any awards. The same can’t be said for La La Land.

The upbeat, feel-good La La Land is so important in that regard. Art is a reflexive expression of the self, and we’ve all been feeling rather downtrodden lately. So why not a little self-medication? Why not a reminder that even when things look dour and hopeless, there’s a silver-lining? That’s what La La Land provides. Through the optimistic song and dance of Stone and Gosling we get a not-so-subtle reminder that good things happen, and that good things happen even after bad things. That there is light at the end of the tunnel, no matter how dark the night might be now.

Now of course, there are detractors of La La Land. Those who say that it is a self-indulgent fantasy for Angelenos. That the casting of Gosling is grossly inappropriate in its “white savior” trope.

My only response to that can be that it is total and utter rubbish. I have personally never been to Los Angeles, yet I found the optimistic, hopeful, starry-eyed goals of the leads refreshing in a world that often seems too content to just sit back and let things be. Those detractors aren’t seeing La La Land in the context that it needs to be seen; a joyful noise in response to the painful anguish that’s weighed the world down for far too long.

Ultimately, I don’t know exactly how La La Land will fare at the Academy awards on February 26^th, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it won a whole bunch of them (yup, this one’s a real threat to break more records). And if that winds up being the case, you can bet that there’ll be another smile, just as big, right back up on my ugly mug.