LA LA LAND: A FAIRY-TALE FEELING

Garnering a record 14 Oscar nominations, La La Land has been the film on the tip of everyone’s tongue for the past few months - but does the musical live up to its sky-high expectations?

La La Land follows the lives of Mia (Emma Stone) and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), two ambitious creatives living in Los Angeles. The film opens with a song set on a crowded highway, the film marries the reality of LA with Mia and Sebastian’s inherent nostalgia for vintage Hollywood. At times it’s easy to forget that what you’re watching belongs to this time period; things like iPhones and pop music often feel out of place in the leads’ reality, and that’s what makes the film so special - it allows you to see the world through both your own eyes and the idealistic vision that the two main characters share.

The visuals themselves are stunning, particularly the colours, as the world of La La Land is bathed in vivid neon hues contrasting with concrete jungle greys. The palette isn’t just there for aesthetic means, however, as it complements the storyline perfectly - warmer hues are present during times of romance between Mia and Sebastian, while more subdued tones fill the screen as their relationship inevitably disintegrates. The shots of the film are hazy, not nearly as gritty as the action films that have dominated cinemas for the past few years, which adds to the all-around feeling of fairy-tale that the film relishes in. At times the stylistic nature of La La Land is pushed too far, leading to a couple of scenes that verge on cheesy, but for the majority of the piece a perfect balance is maintained.

Emma Stone is the real star of La La Land, having already won the Screen Actor’s Guild award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role, but her co-star Gosling’s performance doesn’t quite meet the same standards. At times Gosling is a little bland, not quite as good at conveying the raw emotion that the film sorely needs to keep it on the ground. Without moments of realism, La La Land would feel too airy, so Gosling is lucky that Stone saves the film with her capacity for portraying a character that, while dreamy in personality, still feels shockingly human at all times.

Although advertised as a musical, La La Land features fewer songs than most. However, the lack of quantity is made up for by the range and quality of the music that does feature throughout the film. Some of the numbers will be stuck in your head for weeks, such as “Someone in the Crowd” and John Legend’s “Start a Fire”, while others will send chills down your spine, like the haunting “City of Stars”. While Gosling and Stone’s voices are often outshone by their more musically talented co-stars, their imperfections are refreshing to see while they pursue careers in industries that often require perfection, and, all in all, remind the audience that what they are seeing is not another film ground out of the machine that is Hollywood, but instead a play on the tropes that dominate the film industry today.

4/5

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