I finally watched La La Land last night. I wasn’t sure what to expect going into it. Several friends told me I would love it and relate to it. A few… other sources, gave me the impression I may hate it. By the end of the film, I was somewhere between hate and love, which I felt was somehow worse. It felt like an… OK movie to me.
I’ll preface by saying I wouldn’t call myself a fan of musicals, as in I’m not up to date on them all and haven’t watched very many, but I have enjoyed the musicals I’ve watched, and R.E.N.T is my favorite musical, and one of my favorite films.
The beginning of La La Land was incredible. The opening song and dance just made me happy. It made me think of the day I packed my car and moved to Los Angeles from Phoenix (which will be two years ago Feb 12th). I was intrigued by the film when Emma’s character, Mia, meets Ryan’s character, Sebastian, (and was it just me, or did they not say his name for a really long time?) but once they started dating, I lost my interest in what they were doing, and thus the film itself.
Typically, in a Love Story (which just made me think of Love Story by Katharine McPhee… a line from the song is, typical love story), boy meets girl, they fall in love and then something/someone keeps them apart or tries to break them apart. At first I thought it was going to be because Mia didn’t like jazz, but it wasn’t, and they just started a happy little relationship, so I suppose maybe it isn’t meant to be a Love Story… though, again, I’m confused, as the film seemed to be mainly about their relationship.
When they are in the relationship, I was confused about their goals. A film is all about the main character’s goal. I knew Sebastian wanted to open a jazz club and I knew Mia wanted to be an actress, but in Act II of the film, it felt as if they had kinda put those goals to the side to be with each other, and maybe that was the point of the film?
When the relationship starts getting rocky is when my interest peaked again. The scene where they argue over his career versus his dream and he lashes out at her, I loved it. I swear, Emma Stone is like Alyson Hannigan. When she teared up, I couldn’t help but do the same. I remember listening to commentary from Joss Whedon on an episode of Buffy where Alyson needed to cry, and after, he said everyone tried to comfort her and make sure she was ok and she had to remind them she was fine, it was acting. I couldn’t help but feel what Mia was feeling, even through the screen. That’s one thing I’ll give the film, the performances were incredible.
I’m not a fan of the ending. Sometimes, the ending of a film/TV show/game will make or break it for me. It felt a little cheap to me. I won’t spoil it (despite it being at least a year old), but to say the least, I felt cheated that they won, but still lost, and the way they lost didn’t make sense to me. I liked it less when I watched than I did once I had time to reflect on it, and now, as I write this (as I do these stream of consciousness style), maybe I didn’t like the end because I was viewing the film as a Love Story, and the more I think about it, maybe it wasn’t.
A friend and I got into a debate via text about the film. He was one who told me I MUST see it and I would LOVE it, so he wanted to know why I thought it was just OK. He wrote, and I quote, “The ending was the whole point. The poetry of what could have (or should have) been. Sentimental, and bittersweet. It’s not how love stories typically end in the movies, but it is how they often end in real life!… The juxtaposition of romantic and mundane, old and new, whimsical and ordinary…”
I definitely agree with what he is saying. I suppose, I didn’t expect that to be the message of this film. We later went on to compare it with 500 Days of Summer, and the end of that film made perfect sense for the story the film had been telling up to that point. For me, La La Land’s ending didn’t. I don’t know, I’ll have to re-watch it and pay more attention now that I know how it ends. If there is commentary, I’ll likely play that too so I can get a better insight on the vision of the film.
As I said in the beginning, I didn’t hate it, I just didn’t love it either. Perhaps because of all the hype, I built it up to something it couldn’t possibly deliver? That being said, I do relate to it on an artistic level. I moved to Los Angeles to be a writer, and when Mia runs back home because she is afraid she isn’t good enough. I think a lot of us, if not all of us, have felt that here in Los Angeles.
This film, along with other sources, has sparked a fire within me I wondered was long dead. I feel my drive and passion for writing returning to me, and it makes me incredibly happy. I may have to make a La La Land Redux post in the future, to see if my feelings have changed about it. I remember the first time I watched R.E.N.T, I was extremely confused and didn’t get it, but I watched the special features and listened to the commentary and then I got it. Perhaps the same will happen with La La Land.
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