La La Land almost made me emotional. Almost. Not in a sobbing, heartbreaking kind of way but in a way that made my soul vulnerable to a resonance of profound bittersweet emotions while I was just sitting there, watching two people I’ve grown to love struggle and strive just to realize life isn’t going to give them what they want. That was the moment when I realized dreams and passion can all exist together, at the same time that they can’t coexist.
La La Land puts this technicolor, romantic whirlwind on something so human, so heartbreakingly real: the push and pull between ambition and love. There’s Mia, desperate to make it as an actress, pouring herself into auditions that go nowhere and Sebastian, chasing his jazz club dream in a world that doesn’t seem to care about jazz. They meet, they fall in love, and for a brief moment it feels like maybe, just maybe, they can have it all. But there’s the catch — their dreams are bigger, but not greater, than their love.
I know some people can’t stand musicals. “I don’t like like when people randomly break into a song” is more than a fair statement, but just saying this doesn’t turn them into folks too cool for a movie where emotions are so overwhelming that the characters can’t help but sing!. I get it — they’re pragmatic. Yet, here’s the thing: they’re missing out. Musicals aren’t about realism, they’re about expression, about taking what we feel inside and amplifying it, turning it into something other than life. When Sebastian bursts into song on the highway, it’s not meant to be realistic — it’s meant to be beautiful. It’s a fantasy that mirrors the idealism we all carry somewhere deep down, despite how “cool” and “cynical” they choose to believe to be. It’s not like they could survive watching 1960’s french movies… Mais je peux, chouchou.
I’ll get straight to the point: People who don’t like La La Land are simply posers who can’t appreciate a film that isn’t soaked in gritty, oh-so-serious storytelling. No sugary nonsense with no real substance! To be honest, I’m stepping on dangerous soil because this is pretty much a critique one were to make while having a look at my own Letterboxd account, but anyway — here’s the reality: musicals have more substance than most films people like. These films take, like it or not, raw human emotion and stretch it out for the world to see — every heartbreak, every joy, every dashed hope. They expose the inner workings of the human soul in the most unapologetic way. But no, people roll their eyes because there is singing involved… God forbid we experience art in a form that’s joyous and tragic in equal measure.
That being said, La La Land is tragic. Don’t let the bright colors fool you, it’s all about the sacrifices life makes us do. It’s about choosing one path and wondering what would have happened if you chose the other. And at the end, when they see the life they could have had together, but didn’t? A beautiful, painful punch to the gut.
Maybe the whole point was that the right choice isn’t the one that leaves us with the happiest ending. How can a movie about jazz and Hollywood dreams remind us all that life is messy, dreams are complicated, and love can’t always fix everything? Truly a movie for the hopeless romantics out there.
I wrote this listening to the original vinyl of Grease, by the way.