Movie Review La La Land

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Spoiler alerts – 2016 Not sure what I’m spoiling in a film where nothing happens. I love musicals and I love jazz music, so this award sweeping movie jazz musical should be an all time favorite for me but I found it frightfully dull. Many films use the cliché of Hollywood being populated by waitresses with dreams of being great actors. This two hour movie uses that as its entire plot. The story is basic boy (Ryan Gosling) meets girl (Emma Stone), only for their career ambitions to destroy their relationship. He is a jazz musician caught up in the rock music era, unable to improvise or innovate, ultimately pressed into the role of keyboard player in an ensemble band. She is an aspiring actress, and writer, pushed back by endless failed auditions and eventually marrying another guy entirely (who we barely get to see in the film), while Gosling finally gets a break and she imagines the life they might have had while watching his show with her husband. Emma Stone’s performance is lovely, the cinematography is gorgeous, and though the music is fine, there are no really memorable show tunes or big numbers. Actually, there is one exception, John Legend’s Light A Fire number, written by Legend himself (the rest of the soundtrack, apart from a really bad cover version of A-Ha’s Take On Me), was composed by Justin Hurwitz. Light A Fire seems to embody everything Gosling’s Wilder character envisages in jazz, but he is reduced to a keyboard solo he plays with one hand as if showing it as somehow beneath him and his aspirations. The score then returns to dull reprising of City Of Stars. Gosling gives speeches about how Jazz reinvents itself and takes risks. A co-performer sees jazz as forward looking while Gosling seems to be more of a traditionalist. He talks of how people don’t listen to it properly, a conversation he has while a jazz band plays and he gives them barely any attention. Though set in the 1980’s, the film has a very 1960’s vibe. The characters even go to the cinema to watch a James Dean movie. Ultimately, I found the film dull, and even depressing. Youtube John Legend – Start A Fire Arthur Chappell