***WARNING: If you did not watch ‘La La Land’ and you plan to watch it with fresh eyes, that won’t happen if you read this article!***
As someone who’s always revolved their life around creative pursuits, La La Land was every bit a fantastic experience for me. Emotionally-charged music paired together with powerful dance combos all wrapped up neatly in beautiful cinematography, it was undeniably a joy to take in. And at the core of it all, of course, was a delicate and yet familiar story of two artists who fall in love whilst moving steadfast into fulfilling their dreams.
I loved it. But I can’t quite deny that the ending didn’t sit rather well with me at first. Even at face value it was kind of unsettling. The hopeless romantic in the corner of my mind was screaming at Mia to leave her loser husband and run away with Sebastian (Although I’m sure Mia’s husband is a nice man and not a loser at all!). I was begging for them to even have one last teary exchange of “I’m so happy for you” or “I couldn’t have done this without you.” But alas, it never happened, and I wasn’t the only one that seemed distraught over it.
So for all of you who feel a little empty after watching La La Land, that was actually the point.
Mia and Sebastian seem to find each other at a time where both of them are in somewhat of a rut. Soon, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling’s chemistry is so powerful that we somehow forget that their characters were ever down on their luck. Sebastian is quick to convince Mia to take another route in putting herself out there as an actor, and Mia’s presence in Sebastian’s life inspires him to get a “real job” playing music.
Still in our trance, we get a rude awakening to learn that all paths though similar, may not always be the right one, and the lovers soon are painfully torn apart.
We watch in anticipation as Sebastian does everything in his power to push Mia towards greatness. We sit with bated breath up until a beautiful dream-like sequence commences where they both imagine the life together they so narrowly missed.
It’s this concept of “What Could’ve Been” that breaks hearts.
But, as I said before, we forgot they were ever down on their luck.
We, as viewers, cleverly got tricked into being swept off our feet to believe that this was a story of the coming together of two lovers, when this is actually a story of two dreamers finding exactly where they belong. Together, Mia and Sebastian were still an actor and a musician. But apart, they became those things in the light of which they always hoped for.
We get so stuck on this formula of “happy endings” that when we don’t get it, our immediate reaction is that we are unsatisfied, and that’s okay. It’s okay to want to believe that everything in our lives belongs there, but that’s not always true.
And no matter who you are, if you have ever wished, hoped, or dreamed for something, you also know that there are things that you’ve watched leave your life on the way to getting them. It’s not always for malicious reasons, but it happens.
As we saw, Mia and Sebastian could’ve achieved their dreams together, but timing is everything. And it’s disappointing nonetheless. But no matter what happens, everyone will end up where they need to be. Know that those people have changed your life for the better, thus ultimately you are better for it too.
