A beautiful masterpiece that reflects the golden era of Hollywood but set in contemporary times. La La Land owes its success to the three main stars of this movie: Emma Stone, Ryan Gosling and director Damien Chazelle.
What Chazelle did with this, from the script to its direction, everything was just brilliant. The pacing from start to finish (except for just one tiny part) moved the movie along with such enjoyable and unrelenting speed.
From the opening number, which was superbly done on a highway and in a grand scale, to something smaller in an apartment; there's foot-tapping music and beautiful choreography that made this movie just a well-rounded piece of delightful entertainment. I kept finding myself smiling like a fool throughout the movie.
As I realised that the movie was of a different and higher caliber that was close to perfection with each scene that unfolded, I found myself wanting every single detail to be perfect. And when there was a minor flaw, it stood out to me.
One of which was the singing ability of both the leads. Many times I found myself wishing they were better singers because it was slightly distracting. Especially when John Legend opened his mouth, the contrast between him and everyone else became so apparent.
Then again, their characters were not singers, not at all. But on the other hand, them singing wasn't part of their characterizations, it was more of the narrative - and that should have been perfect.
Which also brought me back to the two opening numbers of the movie, that you can't fake lip-synching and actual singing. You can always tell when a performance wasn't perform live, and knowing that fact took me out of the movie as well.
The one tiny part about pacing that I mentioned earlier was referring to the floating dancing segment, which I thought did not add anything to the aesthetics of the movie. In fact, had the whole Griffith Observatory section be taken out, I don't believe the movie would have missed a single beat.
There were a lot of great shots by cinematographer Linus Sandgren, particularly a few in the pool party that ended with a literal splash. Together with Chazelle, they were also able to create the mood of a particular scene without any dialogue.
The acting were was top notched. I am rooting for Stone and Chazelle, and also Sandgren, to take the award at the end of this month. Gosling, however, will have more contentions in his category and I don't think he has done enough in this one.
But the last five minutes really showed just how good Chazelle was at pulling on our heartstrings. I left the cinema very happy one one hand because I believed that was the only way that the movie could have ended to make it as great as it was, but then again, the movie brought out the romantic in me and I just longed for a different ending.
I think it's safe to say that this is the best movie of 2016 for me.
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