La La Land

Ha! It was wonderful to revisit this film almost a decade after its release, now that the super annoying discourse around it has died down, and it can finally be watched on its own terms. The two biggest critiques I've seen about it since its release is that their chemistry doesn't work/isn't believable, and that Gosling and Stone can't sing (so why were they cast if this is a musical?) To address the first point, of course the chemistry doesn't work. It's not supposed to! At first, I was struck by how cheesy a lot of their dialogue is in the first half, and that had me worried, but then it clicked. They're both playing out their pre-scripted roles and saying things just to move the beginning of their relationship along. Think about things you said on a first or second date that may have been forced or corny because you wanted to be funny and cheesy. We try so hard to not come off as too pretentious, serious, or verbose because we want to be seen as normal and relatable. This real-life relationship behavior lays the groundwork for the silliness of classic Hollywood romances, which the first half of the movie strongly tips its cap to. This first half feels like a fantasy. Just like David Lynch films remove you from reality with a purpose, so does this film. It makes the crash down to reality in the second half hit so much harder than if this was just some sardonic, indie-style drama all the way through. The issue of the two leads' singing is a bit different, but I don't want anyone telling me that Gosling and Stone "can't" sing, especially now that "I'm Just Ken" exists. Damien Chazelle clearly directed the actors to sing amateurishly for most of the movie as a character choice, and then told Emma Stone to turn it up to 11 for her audition song, which she sings beautifully, as a new character choice. I get it. It can be cringeworthy to hear well-intentioned characters sing badly and off-key. But that's real! Neither of these characters are professional singers; their talents are in completely seperate areas. (Even Mia's much-higher quality singing in her audition is literally a fantasy) If you had a movie about, say, art dealers, and had a scene where they broke into song and started singing at each other, this is the technical ability those characters would have. It wouldn't be great! It's choices like this at make it one of the most grounded and realistic movie musicals ever made. If you don't like the singing and that bothers you, that's fine. But it was always an intentional artistic choice. The second half of the movie is so beautiful. Because it's way more grounded than the first half, Chazelle really has a chance to flex his writing ability, flesh out some emotional depth, and give Mia and Sebastian their perfect unhappy ending. Sebastian's whole "I'm a white guy who's gonna save jazz" thing in the first half is goofy as hell, which is why it's great that he ends up achieving his dream by not doing that at all lol. On top of all this, the cinematography, sound design, score, and production design are all simultaneously perfectly modern and strongly evocative of Technicolor-era Hollywood. Honestly, just have Damien Chazelle direct all original live-action musicals from here on out, because I don't know if anyone else has it in them. (cough cough Jacques Audiard cough cough)