(Emma Stone & Ryan
Gosling)
La La Land is by
no means a bad movie, and if it reinvigorates the musical genre, all strength
to it (Review by Patrick Compton - 7/10)
It’s never much fun to be the outsider who doesn’t quite get
it, the barren piece of land that isn’t sprinkled with stardust, or the grouch
who wonders what all the fuss is about. That, sadly, was part of my reaction to
the almost universally praised and beloved La
La Land when I walked out of the auditorium at the weekend.
I don’t want to veer to the other extreme. Writer-director
Damien Chazelle has made a charming film, no question, skilfully scripted and
directed, starring a pair of actors with great chemistry. There’s also a
beautifully wrought, wry ending that rounds it all off with a welcome dash of
realism. The movie has provoked a lot of hype and made a great deal of money
and I would hate to put you off seeing it.
That said, La La Land
is no masterpiece, and please don’t try to compare it to Singin’ in the Rain. Apart from anything else, neither of the two
leads, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, can sing, the dancing is humdrum and there
are very few original songs on offer. Writer/director Damien Chazelle is no
Stanley Donen, and Gosling and Stone – whatever their other strengths – are
surely not the reincarnations of Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds.
Perhaps the excitement has been caused by the fact that the
movie is a musical, a genre much beloved in Hollywood and under threat of
death. Or maybe it’s seen as a ray of romantic light in the gathering darkness
of Trumpland.
Stony hearts are liable to be melted, however, by Stone’s
fine performance. She plays an aspirant actress, Mia, who is forced to work at
the coffee shop on the Warner Brother’s lot. She’s gone through the usual
number of humiliations in various auditions and the big break seems
increasingly remote.
She first meets jazz pianist Sebastian (Gosling) on a
gridlocked Los Angeles freeway – and the result is a predictably discordant
one. Seb, we later learn, is a jazz purist who wants to open his own club,
reinvigorate the musical form and pay homage to his heroes Louis Armstrong,
Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker and Miles Davis. That ambition also looks
unlikely to be realised.
The early scenes are some of the movie’s best as the wittily
fractious couple meet at Hollywood parties and in one particularly enjoyable
moment at a nightclub where JK Simmons, in a witty, self-deprecating cameo, re-enacts
his brutish Oscar-winning role in Whiplash (which Chazelle also wrote and
directed).
Stone is the more attractive of the two leads. Smart, witty
and vulnerable, her huge doe eyes radiate intelligence. She represents the
emotional centre of the film while Gosling, remote and sardonic, is altogether
less sympathetic.
The couple’s life choices pull them apart (of course). Seb
becomes a New Age jazz-rocker (a format he despises) in order to make money.
Touring not only takes him away from the love nest, it seems to change him.
Mia, meanwhile, is left to flounder in LA.
But then she makes her breakthrough at an audition in one of
the movie’s best scenes and – after a big hop in time – we get an emotional
climax that judiciously mixes fantasy and reality.
La La Land is by
no means a bad movie, and if it reinvigorates the musical genre, all strength
to it. But if you approach it as a decent, but by no means overwhelmingly
magnificent piece of entertainment, you’re less likely to be disappointed.
La La Land opened
at Gateway Nouveau, Gateway, the Pavilion, Suncoast and Watercrest cinemas on January
27. – Patrick Compton
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