La La Land, by Damien Chazelle, the movie that won the majority of awards at the Golden Globes and was nominated for a 14 Oscar nominations (making it tied for most nominations in history as Titanic and All About Eve) is thought to be a surefire win for best picture at the Oscars, is a movie musical that combines modernity with the classic musicals of Hollywood. The music is catchy, and the colors of the film are spectacular, but it is also hard to relate to the movie for many of us who are not trying to make it big in Hollywood (or the fact that it features two white people in the main roles).
The premise of the movie is that two people, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, fall in love but face complications in their relationship when they pursue their artistic goals of acting and music respectively. Losing love and sacrificing relationships for your professional goals is a theme that almost anyone might be able to relate to, but the setting of Hollywood makes it seem a little less relatable and is the main reason why I thought the movie was just okay.
It romanticizes Hollywood and the artistic struggle, working your way through auditions and gigs to "make it big" which I am sure is the goal of a subset of people and is a valid one. But for the average moviegoer and person, it was hard to watch the movie and completely relate to the human story of lost love. The Hollywood love fest the movie's plot essentially feels like makes it less appealing for me, and makes me feel more ambivalent towards it than I might have if it were a musical set in a different city about average people.
The film is advertised as a "modern musical", but somehow it does not feel very modern to me in the sense that it is so unrelatable for a large majority of people. It's not that the actual musical numbers were distracting or were bad and unrealistic since no one actually breaks out in song and dance in real life, but they just were all about "making it" in show business. It is hard to feel bad for the characters at the end of the film since *spoiler alert* they both end up having great and successful careers and seem pretty happy.
If the movie had been a musical about the average person and succeeded to entertain and have dancing as well as acting, then I would perhaps have thought it was one of the best movies ever made. Despite the universal them of lost love, it still does not feel like a modern reflection of our times and of the average person who is attempting to get into show business.
Despite this flaw, it was still an entertaining movie with some pretty catchy songs and was visually stunning. It will probably win tons of Oscars because of its strong focus on Hollywood, something they love to award, but I am still not convinced it is one of the best movies I have ever seen. Perhaps it is because I am older and have lost that young sense of hope and naiveté, but the dream of making it big in show business just doesn't feel that interesting, or original, to me anymore.
