Damien Chazelle’s La La Land is a romantic ode to romantics everywhere, and if you’re the type of person who’d ask if we really needed another romantic ode to romantics everywhere, then you, my friend, are why we still need romantic odes to romantics everywhere.
It’s a cynical, pain in the ass world we live in. Dreams are dashed on a daily basis and still we muddle through, pricking up our enthusiasm to try again and again and again, until we settle for the second best dream we can muster, and when that falls through we finally give up and pay the rent any way we can because poverty sucks and you know it sucks and what’s the point anymore? Why bother?
La La Land is why we bother, if not the movie itself then at least the place it describes. Damien Chazelle’s film is set in a colorful musical rendition of Los Angeles where everybody stays giddy about whatever they can get their hands on. The movie opens with a splendiferous musical number set in the middle of bumper to bumper traffic, like “Everything is Awesome!!!” got surgically grafted onto “Everybody Hurts.” And if your career is going nowhere you can at least sing about the social scene, because hey, nobody moves to Los Angeles to give up, right?
Summit Entertainment
La La Land is the story of a struggling jazz musician living in the past, played by Ryan Gosling, and a struggling actress dreaming of the future, played by Emma Stone. They fall in love, and maybe out of love, and sing and dance the whole time, and as sappy as La La Land gets – and it gets pretty sappy – there’s a definite sense that their escapism can’t last for long. Our heroes have to either get busy making their dreams a reality or get busy settling for realistic expectations, and if that’s not a soul-crushing prospect I don’t know what is, and apparently neither does Damien Chazelle.
These characters are defiantly nostalgic for a time they never personally knew, the jazz age and the golden age of Hollywood, but they’re intent to live there anyway. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone play out Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sort of routines that, were they actually played by dancers as talented as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, might be showstoppers for the ages. But what they may lack in flair they make up for with enthusiasm. We like them, maybe we even love them, and we can probably relate to them, and we certainly want them to succeed. But maybe – since she’s not the best actress ever and he can’t seem to stick to a damned set list to save his life – they really won’t make it in La La Land, at least not in the long run.
Summit Entertainment
For a film brimming with genuine joy there sure is a lot of melancholy I seem to have picked up in La La Land. Damien Chazelle’s dedication to one-take trickery and magical realism is earnestly sweet but it’s obviously out of place, and when his film finally ends – and oh, what an ending – it does so with a pitch perfect arrangement of success and failure, humor and sadness, colorful dreams and crushing facts. La La Land is nothing if not an enchanting composition, a magical musical indeed.
In Whiplash, writer/director Damien Chazelle defiantly asked whether any sacrifice was worth making in exchange for timeless art. It was the story of a young man who was willing to give up his sanity for the sake of greatness. Here, Chazelle places all his focus on characters whose motivations are no less honest, but far less obsessive. This is a film about doubts and how we try to overcome them, with a little help from our friends and lovers. It’s romantic about romance, because without romance there would be nothing to get romantic about.
And if we can’t get this romantic, La La Land romantic, sappy-daffy old school Hollywood romantic, then what’s the point anymore? Why bother?
Thirteen Must-See Films at TIFF 2016:
Top Photo: Summit Entertainment
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and Canceled Too Soon, and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved, Rapid Reviews and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
TIFF 2016: 12 Films That Should Excite You
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All I See Is You
Blake Lively stars as a blind woman who regains her sight, and discovers that her marriage might not be all it seemed to be. A challenging concept with a great cast, directed by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball).
Photo: LINK Entertainment
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The Bad Batch
Ana Lily Amirpour brought her unique sensibilities to the vampire genre with the acclaimed A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night, and for her big follow-up she's tackling community cannibalism. Another impressive cast features Suki Waterhouse, Jason Momoa, Jim Carrey and Keanu Reeves.
Photo: Annapurna Pictures
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Colossal
Anne Hathaway stars in a very unusual kaiju story, about a woman who loses everything but discovers she has a connection to a giant monster. Nacho Vigalondo (Time Crimes) directs, Jason Sudeikis and Dan Stevens co-star.
Photo: Warner Bros.
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Elle
Paul Verhoeven may be best known to American audiences as the director of Robocop and Total Recall, but his latest film sounds dark as hell. Isabelle Huppert stars as a successful business woman who is sexually assaulted, and begins stalking her assailant for revenge.
Photo: SBS Productions
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Free Fire
Kill List and High-Rise director Ben Wheatley travels to America for a shoot out movie with a stellar cast, including Cillian Murphy and recent Oscar-winner Brie Larson. Will the horror master who brought us Kill List be able to change the way we look at action?
Photo: Film4 Productions
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The Handmaiden
Shock filmmaker Chan-wook Park has blown our minds with disturbing films like Oldboy and Stoker, but his new film is a classy period piece about a handmaiden (hence the title) conning her new mistress, but falling in love with her anyway. The promise of sumptuous costumes and production design, old school romance and - since it's still Chan-wook Park after all - a few mind-blowing twists make The Handmaiden one of the most enticing films of the year.
Photo: CJ Entertainment
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Jackie
Since winning a Best Actress Oscar for Black Swan, Natalie Portman hasn't really found a high-profile role worthy of her talents. Perhaps this biopic about Jackie Kennedy, which takes place over the course of the JFK assassination, will finally give her the opportunity to shine again.
Photo: Wild Bunch
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La La Land
Damien Chazelle does an about-face after his impossibly dark, award-winning Whiplash for a colorful musical about Hollywood, inspired by European classics like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling reteam for a film that everybody is already raving about after its premiere at other festivals.
Photo: Summit Entertainment
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Loving
One of the most important court cases in American history, dramatized by the great Jeff Nichols (Mud), starring the great Ruth Negga (Preacher) and the great Joel Edgerton (Warrior), as an interracial couple who dared to get married when their love was literally illegal.
Photo: Focus Features
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A Monster Calls
The Orphanage director J.A. Bayona returns to the supernatural genre with an adaptation of the hit novel by Patrick Ness, about a boy who deals with his mother's illness by escaping into a world of the supernatural. A Monster Calls could be one of those rare films that bridges the gap between horror and drama in a way that awards voters find palatable... if it's good enough.
Photo: Focus Features
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Nocturnal Animals
A Single Man director Tom Ford finally - FINALLY - returns with an ambitious dramatic thriller, starring Amy Adams as a woman who gets lost in a novel written by her first husband, played by Jake Gyllenhaal. Whatever Tom Ford is doing, we're interested.
Photo: Focus Features
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(re)Assignment
Genre master Walter Hill is back with a premise so audacious, it's downright offensive. Michelle Rodriguez plays a man who is forced to undergo genre reassignment surgery, and sets out to exact revenge. Will (re)Assignment be completely wrongheaded and worthy of scorn, or will Walter Hill prove that he has something worthwhile to say?
Photo: SBS Productions
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The Unknown Girl
The Dardennes Brothers try their hand at the thriller genre with an emotional drama about a doctor at a clinic who ignores a patient's cries for help, and winds up exploring the unknown woman's life out of guilt after she dies. Few filmmakers navigate difficult emotions more beautifully than the Dardennes.
Photo: Diaphana
