What is it about?                                                                                                                     Directed by Damien Chazelle, who did a great job with Whiplash, La La Land is a modern-day musical that goes back to the originals of the 40s and 50s. Set in Los Angeles, it is about Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a jazz enthusiast that wants to start his own club, that fall in love. The movie’s about how they set out to achieve their dreams and how their romance gets involved in that.

How is it? 9.8/10                                                                                                                     La La Land is an excellent film, whether or not you like musicals, the director, or the stars. I’m not a fan of musicals…at all, and this movie had me tapping my toe at every song, laughing at the jokes, and appreciating the cinematography, acting, and soundtrack. La La Land delivers a joyous, whirling, whimsical, but realistic experience. And being set in L.A., and explores the struggles of being a dreamer, achieving your dreams, and the compromise that comes with it. It switches between fantastical musical sequences and real emotion perfectly to show this. Overall, it’s a really emotional, sweet movie, that’s even funny at times, and it has a satisfying, but bittersweet conclusion.                                                                                                                                         The Direction                                                                                                                  Damien Chazelle does a great job of incorporating music into this movie. He did it with Whiplash, which was about an aspiring drummer and his teacher, and he does it here, as he makes the music an integral part of this movie, both in a technical and story sense. Also, the cinematography here is spectacular, and looks beautiful. In huge musical sequences, it has wide, sweeping, seemingly one-take shots that capture the spinning, whimsical aspect of it. In addition, there’s great lighting in the movie.                                                                                       The “Musical” Aspect                                                                                               I’ve said this before, and I’m going to say it now: I don’t like musicals. But I loved every minute of this movie, including the musical aspect. Musicals don’t always transition to the singing sequence smoothly, but this movie does it seamlessly. This has realistic transitions that start and end organically, in moments where that sort of thing would actually happen. The first such sequence happens in the very first minute of the film, and is of people in L.A. sitting in painful traffic and all of a sudden burst into song: it’s a great sequence. The whirring, whizzing musical sequences capture the theme in the movie of having dreams, as characters joyfully burst out into song and dance, but we are soon faced with raw emotion: the downside of these dreams                                                                                                                                                     The Characters and Acting                                                                                 Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling have really great chemistry in this movie. Onscreen, they are a great and very believable couple. They both display fantastic acting as a couple of struggling dreamers hitting a ton of obstacles along the way. Emma Stone, in particular, is amazing, and portrays her character and her emotions exceptionally. Ryan Gosling is actually pretty funny at times, which definitely adds to the film.                                                                                                                                                The Music                                                                                                                  La La Land has a really, really good soundtrack composed by Justin Herwitz. All of the songs have great lyrics that connect with the content of the movie really well. Their incorporation and placement in the film is also done really well.

Overall, La La Land is one of my Top 3 favorite movies of the year, with some great music, acting, and heart, and it brings back the dead genre of musicals in all the best ways.