La La Land Review
Hollywood Winter brings “Another Day of Sun” in Damien Chazelle’s new film, La La Land. The musical opens in a traffic jam. Radios tune between cars, then a young woman in a bright yellow dress and polished white keds starts humming a melody. Hoods of cars are used like tables in a bar; motorists hop and dance, singing of all they’ve sacrificed to find themselves in this place: the traffic jam; Hollywood; the life of a struggling artist.
Mia (Emma Stone) is in the jam, going over a script, on her way to an audition. When she fails to see the motorist in front of her pull forward, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) honks from behind her and shakes his head at her inattention. Mia flips him off and goes about her day. She nails the audition, but doesn’t get the part. She heads home and crashes into her bed; Ingrid Bergman’s gigantic face plastered where her dreams dance. Her roommates, three other actresses, convince her to join them on the town. Mia is left alone at a party, and finds her car has been towed. Walking home, she is drawn to a beam of jazz in the quiet night. She wanders into the dim club, and guess who’s playing piano?
We know who’s playing piano, but we don’t see him yet. Instead we’re pulled back to the traffic jam: Sebastian honking, Mia flipping. But, this time, we drive away in his car. We follow Sebastian home, where his sister chides him about his lack of stability. “I like being on the ropes,” he says. “I’m letting life hit me ’til it gets tired. Then I’m gonna hit back.” Seb has dreams of opening his own jazz club, but plays boring classics at a fine-dining restaurant for the time being. As Mia wanders into the club, Seb is working some free jazz into the set, for which he is immediately fired (it is not the first time he has diverted from the set list).
A pool party in Spring brings the two together again. Mia is there to meet Hollywood “elites”, and Sebastian is there to play keytar for a 80s cover band. When Mia requests the band play “I Ran”, Sebastian is less than pleased. After the party, despite sharing a song about how they’re no good for each other, the two go on a few dates, and we glimpse the crux of their dreams. Mia was shown classics as a child and couldn’t get enough. She loves telling stories and writing plays. Sebastian passionately reminisces on the first days of jazz; a New Orleans house stuffed with people who spoke five different languages. “The only way they could talk to each other,” he tells Mia, “was with music”.
By Summer, the two are going steady. Seb has joined a band with an old friend, Keith (John Legend), running the show. The two disagree about the approach to music: Keith has employed dubstep breakdowns in the middle of jazz-sounding songs, and Sebastian is thrown when he rehearses with the band for the first time. “How you gonna be a revolutionary, if you’re such a traditionalist,” Keith asks Sebastian, and it hits hard.
Suddenly, La La Land becomes a rumination on roads not travelled. A story of the sacrifices a struggling artist must make to, one day, become a successful artist. When touring and promotion of the band’s new record starts taking all of Seb’s time, Mia asks him if this is the life he wants. Why has he given up the dream of opening his own club? What’s heartbreaking is her character doesn’t realize Sebastian’s dream has changed.
Earlier, Seb overhears Mia talking with her mom about his lack of steady pay. “He’s nobody yet,” she says. He locks down the gig with Keith’s band to support himself, but, to Mia, he’s not the same. “Why are you giving up your dream,” she says. “This is the dream,” he says, and he means this, right here: the two of them sharing a meal and talking about their dreams.
Chazelle, like in his first feature, Whiplash, is interested in sacrifice. As an Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, Chazelle proves he’s also an incredibly talented visual storyteller: a stain on the ceiling says more than a monologue could. The film is enveloping and asks challenging questions without positing flimsy answers.
Relationships, personal goals, Chicken on a Stick; when a person finally achieves their goal, is it worth all they’ve given along the way? Ask Mia and Seb, and you’ll get two very different answers.
