La La Land is triumph of creativity that successfully breaks the script of what we have come to expect from a movie. You can go into this movie with any preconceived notions of these actors or on musicals, but at the end I am confident that you will be wanting to skip your way right out the theater with jazz music playing in your head.
La La Land follows Sebastian and Mia, both ambitious young dreamers living in Los Angeles. The duo meets and are immediately drawn together; falling in love, not only with each other, but with each other’s passions. The chemistry between the two lovers engulfs you, and for two hours you are in the heart of LA experiencing the clash of love and aspiration.
The beauty of this movie is in this. It has the ability to draw you in and make you feel like you are dreaming rather than watching a film. As the scenes flow together with callbacks to old Hollywood you feel like you are in a daze. The cinematography is soft and brilliant; perfectly following the pace of the story. The long continuous shots add to the effect that you are drifting through this movie with the characters. The movie feels like a precise rambling of beauty.
It starts with a song and dance that might make you question what you got yourself into, but is soon followed with pure romance, comedy, and grace that will suck you in. La La Land will make you tap your feet, smile, and reevaluate your dislike of musicals. It will restore your faith that a high-quality, romantic movie does not need to be filled with R-rated sex scenes. And, if in the first two hours you haven’t already mentally drifted into the magic of this movie, then the last 5 minutes will definitely do the trick.
