+ Best Musical of the Year
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| A supremely romantic and beautiful poster for Damien Chazelle's La La Land |
A hopeful young actress meets a down-on-his-luck jazz pianist with big dreams of his own, and they fall in love in the city of dreams ...
La La Land is the 3rd feature from great Long Island-born writer-director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash (2014)), who has focused on jazz musicians in his films to date, along with the struggle to break through and arrive creatively.
La La Land begins with a song-and-dance number (Another Day of Sun) on an LA freeway that is a breath of fresh air and a perfect opener for a film that has already become a modern musical classic. The film continues to be a brightly colored (with gorgeous, Oscar-nominated costumes by Mary Zophres (Inside Llewyn Davis (2013))), impressively shot (on film, by Oscar-winning Linus Sandgren (American Hustle (2013))) ode to the dreamers that make up LA in particular and the world in general. It conveys the same kind of sentimental attachment to the good old days (of traditional jazz, old-style movie theaters etc.) also found in films like Midnight in Paris (2011), although it ultimately chooses to argue that these fine things still have their place in the modern world.
La La Land is especially enjoyable for those familiar with classic musicals and classic movies in general. It is especially molded over Jacques Demy's musical masterpiece The Umbrellas of Cherbourg/Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (1964), both, to a degree, in terms of style, and in terms of its story, which is very similar in structure here. - But where the older film manages to build to a melodramatic pitch of emotional resonance in just 91 minutes, La La Land diverts to a more realism-bound and less forceful third act (SPOILER with a fight, a breakup, and a creative failure) and sports a hefty 128 minute running time. The construction of the film makes it Chazelle's own responsibility that it be judged against this timeless piece of cinema, and it diminishes it a bit.
Oscar-nominated Ryan Gosling (Blue Valentine (2010)) plays the piano convincingly (he reportedly learned this for his performance), and is terrific as the passionate Seb, and Oscar-winning Emma Stone (Magic in the Moonlight (2014)) is a peach as lovely Mia, although she looks in some pain during my least favorite song in the film, Audition/The Fools Who Dream, wherein the film breaks from its intimate, character-bound story and dishes up a more Les Misérables-type, overly eloquent salute. In contrast, my favorite song, next to the opening winner, must be the one in the walk-to-the cars scene (A Lovely Night), in which the two stars tap-dance magnificently. The film also contains John Legend (Soul Men (2008)), playing an old friend of Seb and lending his voice to another cool song (Start a Fire), and Rosemarie DeWitt (Poltergeist (2015)) as Seb's sister. Justin Hurwitz's (Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench (2009)) Oscar-winning music is generally a joy.
La La Land is terrific, a rare treat. Don't miss it.
Related posts:
Midnight in Paris (2011) - Allen's zany (and a little depressing) crowdpleaser
Damien Chazelle: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]
2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]
The day after ... the Oscars 2017
Watch a trailer for the film here
Cost: 30 mil. $
Box office: 396.9 mil. $ and counting
= Huge hit
[La La Land premiered 31 August (Venice International Film Festival) and runs 128 minutes. Chazelle wanted to make the film for years but could not find funding until his highly successful Whiplash opened the doors for him. Emma Watson and Miles Teller were initially in talks to star. Rehearsals took 3-4 months with piano, dancing, singing, acting and movie screenings, arranged by Chazelle. Although the film's beginning proclaims its being in CinemaScope, in fact it is not, since the technology for the old format isn't available anymore. Shooting took place in LA from August - September 2015, lasting just 40 days. The opening scene was filmed first and took two days and more than 100 dancers on the actual freeway. Other notable locations include the Griffith Observatory and the Angels Flight trolly, which was actually closed down in 2013, but which the crew got operated for a single day's shoot. The film opened #15 in 5 theaters with 0.8 mil. $ to a spectacular 176k $ theater average in North America, the year's highest average, widening to peak at #2 (behind Hidden Figures) and later at 3,236 theaters in the home market, where it has grossed 145.9 mil. $ to date. The film was nominated for 14 Oscars, tying the record number with All About Eve (1950) and Titanic (1997): It won 6: Best Director, Actress, Score, Song (City of Stars), Cinematography and Production Design. It lost Best Picture to Moonlight, Best Actor to Casey Affleck for Manchester by the Sea, Screenplay to Manchester by the Sea, Costumes to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Sound Mixing and Editing to Hacksaw Ridge and Sound Editing to Arrival (the film had two song nominations, so it comes to 14.) It also won a record 7 Golden Globes, 5 BAFTAs out of 11 nominations, AFI's Movie of the Year award, its place on the National Board of Review's Top 10 of the year, an actress award in Venice and many many more awards and nominations. It has taken the #65 spot on IMDb's user-generated Top 250, between The Dark Knight Rises (2012) and Princess Mononoke/Mononoke-Hime (1997). La La Land is certified fresh at 93 % with an 8.6 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]
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