Technicolor throwback

The escapist joys of ‘La La Land’

Movies about music, and musicals. I love the former; I tolerate the other. It takes a Philippe Petit mastery of balance for a proper musical to win me over. Great songs, endearing characters, and a self-aware sense of genre re-invention go a long way toward divorcing the form from its staid antiquity. Not unlike the traditional Western, there’s something about a classic Hollywood musical that feels obsolete.

Being a movie about music, Damien Chazelle’s 2014 breakout film “Whiplash” possessed an honesty that spoke to a life in love with jazz music, while indulging ‘80s movie tropes of troubled, talented youth overcoming circumstance and proving their worth.

Oscar-winning and enjoyable as it is, “Whiplash” only hinted at the grandiose visual splendor and fantastical cinematic ambitions of Chazelle’s latest love letter to music, “La La Land," a sumptuous Technicolor musical shot in CinemaScope that pays homage to everything from "Singin' in the Rain" to "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg."  

The charm offensive is apparent from the first scene: a gridlocked highway full of Angelenos break into a rapturous song-and-dance number, satirically praising the joys of yet another sunny day in California.

Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a frustrated jazz pianist making a pittance working sparsely-populated clubs and private gigs. Mia (Emma Stone) is a struggling actress taken by Sebastian’s charm and talent. Their inexorable chemistry blooms into love. But the realities of life in the City of Angels, and their own ambitions, threaten to pull them apart.

Gosling and Stone as romantic leads (for the third time) mirror the collaborations of Astaire and Rogers or Kelly and Reynolds, rediscovered for a new era. Like their musical peers, their chemistry is nuclear-powered. Chazelle cannily balances genre anachronism and contemporary storytelling, creating a surprisingly congruent whole, though even his unabashed sincerity can’t quite overcome the inherent pretensions that come with being a genre throwback.  

Fortunately, “La La Land” isn’t so superficial. The original songs are great. “A Lovely Night” is catchy as hell; “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” is a heartrending melody that reaches “I Dreamed a Dream” levels of emotion.  There’s not a bad or boring song to be found.

Chazelle has made a gorgeous contemporary ode to the grandeur of the films that inspired him. The film’s tone, technique and sensibility belie the youth of its director, who is just 31 years old. And Los Angeles has rarely been photographed with such affection, thanks to the cinematography by Linus Sandgren, a David O. Russell alum.

It feels like the wrong movie for its time—a smoking hot couple in a star-crossed romance, singing and dancing their way across the backdrop of a glowing, romanticized vision of Los Angeles in all its CinemaScope glory. Though the dark side of reality creeps in on Sebastian and Mia, wistful regrets aside, they are going to be just fine.

As evidenced by the frivolous self-effacement of its title, the whimsical pleasures of “La La Land” are at odds with our current cultural and political malaise. And yet, that’s probably why “La La Land” is exactly the kind of movie we need right now.

For more from Joe, read his conversation with fellow TTV movie writer Jeff Huston on the best films of 2016.