Great expectations can be hard to live up to. Such is the hype around La La Land, Damien Chazelle's Oscar-tipped musical extravaganza, it'd need to be near flawless to measure up. Well, don't expect me to try to derail the bandwagon; it is just as you have heard elsewhere. La La Land is two hours of unadulterated joy, a brilliant homage to Hollywood's Golden Age that will leave your heart enlarged and your feet tapping for weeks to come. It must be seen on the big screen, but more importantly in a time of great sadness and difficulty, it simply must be seen.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone play ambitious young lovers, each trying to make their way in different Los Angeles entertainment industries. He's the gifted but temperamental musician, refusing to compromise on his non-progressive view of jazz; she's the struggling actress wading through a thousand failed auditions. In each other they finally find the person who makes sense of them, and the stability and the inspiration to reach for their own personal goals. As a storyline it's unremarkable, but a combination of two winsome central performances and Chazelle's dynamic creative vision lifts the film from the realms of procedural romance to life-affirming, eye-popping spectacle.
There are wonderful songs; constantly-watchable dance numbers. There are fantasy sequences, and other moments where reality is not quite certain. Yet all of this and the main drama are never disjointed, none of the many moving parts ever seem incongruous. Chazelle weaves the whole thing together like a master, drawing on obvious influences from Hollywood's past (the whole thing is even shot in Cinemascope), yet boldly imposing his own new vision.
In fact this idea – of how the old and the new work together – is one of the central motifs of the film, explored in Gosling's jazz plotline (also featuring John Legend in his first major acting role). And that's just one of the themes that Chazelle's script explores. He also finds time to look at the trade-off between the dreams we hold and the people we love, and to pose some poignant "what if" questions about where our priorities can lead us.
Perhaps most fundamentally though, La La Land is a joyous experience, a rare treat of a film in which you'll catch your jaw aching from the constant smile it has provoked. It's often funny, it's constantly entertaining, and in several of the key sequences there's so much going on that it's akin to witnessing a firework display. The opening sequence – a huge song and dance number encased in one incredible single tracking shot – is an astonishing feat of technical accomplishment, while the finale is so rich with depth and references that it begs for a second, third and fourth viewing. Here's the really interesting thing though: it made me realise that I hadn't felt so uplifted in a long time. The film actually reminded me what it's like to sit wide-eyed in awe and wonder.
2016 was a tough year for a hundred complex reasons. Two hours of brightly-dressed performers singing and dancing doesn't solve that, but it does offer a healthy reminder that our hearts were made for joy as well as sadness. Take my word for it, and take the advice of pretty much everyone else who has seen it. La La Land is as close to perfect as it could hope to be: a film that challenges you to think, forces you to smile and dares you to dream. There aren't many of us who couldn't benefit from a dose of all that right now.
Martin Saunders is a Contributing Editor for Christian Today and the Deputy CEO of Youthscape. Follow him on Twitter @martinsaunders.
