Not simply just a musical or a romantic drama - this is so much better than that

Rating: 9/10 (9 January 2017)

Mia (played by Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress, working in a coffee shop. She gets auditions but nothing has come of these. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a struggling jazz pianist, playing small venues. His dream is to open his own jazz club. The two meet, but don't hit it off. Over time, however, things change...
I generally dislike musicals and romantic dramas. Romantic dramas tend to be incredibly formulaic, schmaltzy and unrealistic. Musicals are irritating because instead of spoken dialogue you have someone singing words at you, and it all seems so contrived and out of place (thus is if you're lucky. Many musicals just use music as padding).
So it is with some trepidation that I watched La La Land. The opening few scenes didn't help my fear that this was going to be a campy West Side Story-like implausible song-and-dance fest or a Les Miserables-like constant stream of nails-on-blackboard irritation.
However, it soon became clear that La La Land is better than that. The answer to "How much better?" increases the more into the movie you get.
What sustains the movie initially is its warmth: the wonderful, often-funny dialogue and the interaction between the two main characters. The chemistry between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is fantastic and their performances (especially Emma Stone's) alone are worth the price of admission.
Even the music is okay - sporadically used, not as intrusive as it could have been and it seems to integrate into the plot well. Moreover, rather than just serve as padding, it helps move the plot along. (This all said, I would have preferred genuine dialogue!).
At this point the movie was still heading down a rather safe, predictable "boy meets girl...yadda yadda...happily ever after" route. The stuff of easy box office dollars rather than genuine art.
Then writer-director Damien Chazelle (of Whiplash fame) ups the ante, moving it from a mere romantic drama to a drama that covers a host of themes - artistic integrity, the price of fame, chasing dreams, the trade-offs between relationships and careers, missed opportunities and life's big "what if?" moments. An incredibly emotional, bitter-sweet ending ties it all together perfectly.
What appeared to be a quaint-yet-innocuous film turned into a wonderfully profound, hard-hitting work of art.