Musical for the first half, romantic drama for the second

Rating: 7/10 (3 January 2017)

I love movies like 'Once' and 'Sing Street,' that feature music but aren't truly musicals in that the dialog isn't sung. I'm not at all a fan of the musical where nearly all the dialog is sung. I was a little worried during the start of "La La Land" that we'd encountered the latter, and while the musical numbers were entertaining, they were pretty ordinary. However, as the movie progressed, the singing decreased, and the dialog and story got more interesting. Ultimately, I enjoyed the film and the music, and thought it struck a nice balance between dialog that was sung and dialog that was spoken. Nice performances by Gosling and Stone as well, and I appreciated the ending, which wasn't quite what many might expect or want.