The Ending of “La La Land” Helped Me Make Peace with my Past: A Personal Essay
Although I am about seven years late, like many others, I too was absolutely heartbroken over the tear-jerking ending of the iconic film, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, La La Land. An ending so beautiful, yet so tragic. An ending so heart-rending and ironic, yet so realistic. An ending that truly encapsulates the give-and-take nature of the human experience, that I couldn’t help but feel my heart break while sensing a smile grow onto my face. Proceed with caution as I am about to spoil the ending of this film.
While trying to establish their place within Los Angeles, the City of Angels, a struggling actress, Mia, and an old-soul jazz pianist, Seb, fall in love. They part ways as Mia is offered the opportunity to star in a movie being filmed in Paris, promising that they will always love each other. Five years later, their paths intersect by a cruel twist of fate when Mia stumbles upon a jazz club while on a date with her husband, not knowing that it was Seb’s. Seb walks onstage and spots Mia in the crowd before playing their song. Suddenly, the movie transitions to a reel of “what-if scenes” that depict what would have had to happen in order for these star-crossed lovers to end up together. Together, Mia and Seb pushed each other to chase their wildest dreams. Seb motivates Mia to go to the audition that ends up launching her stardom, and Mia plays a pivotal role in encouraging Seb to open the jazz club as she is the one who ultimately came up with the name of the club and designed its final logo. However, the reel illustrates that none of this would have been possible had the two stayed together as one of them would have had to sacrifice their own dreams in order to maintain the relationship. The film closes with Mia and Seb locking eyes at the door of Seb’s club, clearly still in love, sharing a knowing smile at one another before Mia leaves with her husband and Seb continues to perform.
The ending of La La Land stuck with me for days and launched me into a self-reflective period where I began to re-examine the goodbyes I have said in my personal life. With the significantly more mature perspective that I hold now, I see that there are situations from my past that I was once colorblind too as I would only see the story in black and white. I now see that these chapters of my life co-existed in both the black, the white, the beautiful, and the tragic, just like how the story of Mia and Seb did.
This piece isn’t an analysis on this award-winning film, or a commentary on La La Land’s wildly controversial ending. This is a dialogue, or more accurately: a reflection. Like the rest of La La Land viewers, the film stimulated me to ask myself a plethora of questions. How much sacrifice has to be made in order to be successful? If I had to choose, which would it be: love or success? And the film challenged me to deepen my understanding of life and romantic relationships by wondering how two people can love each other so purely and play such a monumental role in their individual development, yet not end up together. After all, this reality challenges the fairytale happy-ending many of us were spoonfed all throughout our childhood.
In my eyes, La La Land is all about the nuances of life, love, and success. These nuances were something I struggled to find peace with throughout the last two years. I just couldn’t wrap my head around the fact that two opposing things could sensibly co-exist, and to this day, they continue to challenge me, particularly when I reflect on the loss of my first relationship.
In our final goodbye, my previous partner said to me, “Have a wonderful life, you deserve it.” And it absolutely broke my heart because of how much he cared about my wellbeing and how devastated we were to define this goodbye as permanent. He was my first boyfriend and our relationship was far from perfect, considering I was burned by an act of infidelity. But even then, I consider this moment to be the most painful encounter I had with him. This moment was when I experienced the nuances of love and loss at its strongest. I felt empowered, knowing that I would be better-off no longer being in this relationship. But I also felt so overwhelmed by intense grief that it felt like I was being brought to my knees. There is a spectrum, where love is one end and loss is the other. And I was experiencing the spectrum’s polarizing ends at the same time, just like how Mia and Seb were when they lovingly let each other go to allow themselves to pursue their dreams with no restraints besides a broken heart. Mia fully commits to the movie in Paris which eventually leads her to stardom, and Seb focuses on building his music career which eventually gives him a reputation so respectable that he’s able to open his dream jazz club. At the end of the day, their goodbye set them free.
This principle, that the most painful goodbyes are the ones that truly set you free, is the epitome of the nuances of love and loss. You cannot experience loss without love, and vice versa. The only thing that changes, especially in moments like a break-up, is where you choose to give your love to. Following the loss of my first relationship, a deep sense of determination to grow from the experience blossomed within me. I began channeling the love I was so used to giving to this one person into myself. Never had I been so committed to discovering my identity, prioritizing my well being, and rebuilding my life into something that I was proud of. But this process was incredibly painful. I felt myself repeatedly shatter into a million tiny pieces until I had no choice but to rebuild from scratch. I outgrew friendships. I took ownership of my restrictive eating. I withdrew my anxieties and insecurities from my subconscious, and brought these demons to the light so that I could look them in the face. I was determined to be better for myself. My determination was my way of taking control over these intense emotions because I couldn’t bear the idea of living with these feelings forever. And it was then that I set myself free.
Of course, I didn’t know any of this at the time. I didn’t know that riding the emotional rollercoaster would teach me to develop internal discipline. I didn’t know that facing my fear of judgment and rejection would push me to detach from my ego, instilling with me the sense of peace that we are all subconsciously looking for. I didn’t know that being burned by an act of infidelity would teach me that I cannot control other people’s actions, and thus severing my need for external validation. I didn’t know that my constant choice to keep fighting for myself would lead to a deep sense of self-assurance and invariably boost my confidence. The fact is that I didn’t know where I was heading, but I kept going regardless.
And that’s a large reason why growth and success are also incredibly nuanced. There is a reason why there’s the saying, “Nothing good ever came easy.” Because it’s true. To know success, is to know struggle. If you don’t know struggle, you won’t have the capacity to truly recognize and appreciate all the blessings that you are experiencing in the present. I didn’t know that by expanding my emotional capacity, I was paving the way for me to experience some of the most freeing and exhilarating moments of my life. And now, two years later, I have wholeheartedly fallen in love with the life that I created. I love my new eating habits, my creative hobbies (like writing!), my new environment as a UCLA student, my unwavering sense of identity, and the inspiring people that I am blessed to know and care for.
I mentioned earlier in this piece a series of questions that La La Land inspired me to ponder upon. How much sacrifice has to be made in order to be successful? And if I had to choose, which would it be: love or success? Many viewers justify the film’s unconventional rom-com ending by suggesting that Mia and Seb’s story illustrate how love can be the greatest sacrifice you have to make in order to succeed. But I don’t necessarily agree with this. In my opinion, it is a far greater sacrifice to be in a relationship that inhibits your success, than to leave a relationship in order to chase success. Seb motivated and encouraged Mia to roll the dice and take a chance on her dreams by producing her one-woman show. But when opening night came, Seb wasn’t in the audience because he had commitments to his own band, which played a crucial role to his individual success. When it came down to it, Seb chose his success over the relationship, not because he didn’t love or prioritize Mia, but because encouraging each other to commit to their dreams was the foundation to their romantic connection. I truly don’t believe that Mia would’ve asked him to miss his public induction into the band in order to watch her performance because she understands what it’s like to fully dedicate yourself to chasing your dreams. Their stages of life were aligned just enough for them to support each other, but not enough to stay together as they eventually ended up walking down separate paths, which briefly intersected when they exchanged a knowing smile in Seb’s jazz club. The harsh reality is that they were never meant to be. Their relationship wasn’t a sacrifice they made in order to achieve their dreams, rather it was a propeller towards their individual success. For that reason, their love was never theirs to keep. In the long run, their relationship wouldn’t have been sustainable because they would’ve been constantly having to choose between their relationship or their individual success. Yet, because they loved each other so purely, they had only encouraged each other to focus on building their individual futures, even if this meant the relationship getting lost in the background. It’s cruelly ironic.
Hence why I don’t believe that you have to choose between love and success. Maybe Mia’s relationship with her husband doesn’t consist of as much passion as her relationship with Seb did. But I believe that the best long-term partner is one that loves you unconditionally and also fits into the life that you envision for yourself. Mia and Seb may have had the passion, but they didn’t fit into the final puzzle of their individual lives. Things will end and you will become better because of it. The road to becoming your most aligned self will be filled to the brim with the most strenuous of challenges and the most life-changing of blessings. It will be black, white, beautiful, and tragic. And this is a painful and freeing truth that I’ve come to understand within the past two years.
Like how La La Land is a love letter to the City of Angels, this piece is a love letter to my first break-up. I stepped back into the shoes of my younger self and examined the “La La Land” I was once living in by considering the nuances of heartbreak, goodbye, growth, and success. In this current state of my life, I can now fondly look back on my past experiences. I’ll always feel lucky and cherish that I had the chance to fall in love and to be loved. To the person who once knew me, I found the good in our goodbye inside of all the post-lessons of our relationship and inside a newfound appreciation for the way my emotional capacity has been deepened. I have fallen in love with the life that I have without you, and I hope you did too. Have a wonderful life.
