For some reason over-hyped

Rating: 6/10 (27 January 2017)

Right with the studio logos this movie takes us back to the golden age of cinema - and then it immediately turns into a ridiculous, lovely, dancing-upon-cars, lively song.
In general, I liked this movie. Sadly, it is way too over-hyped. It has a lot of fun songs, the cinematography is beautiful and I certainly understand what the movie wanted to do - but I didn't connect with it.
Another movie looking back fondly at "the old movies" was "Hail, Caesar!" and many people disliked it but somehow they love "La La Land", even though it tried to do the exact same thing (apart from the love story, of course).
What was the worst about this movie for me was that the main character - Seb, played by Ryan Gosling - was basically just a singing and dancing Noah (from "The Notebook"). I thought Noah was an insufferable prick and Seb is no better. Basically, he is the quintessential mopey, entitled, "romantic" artist, who is just so poor because everyone ignores his "art". Oh, woe is me. And Mia is just a musical version of Allie, just as annoying and entitled as well.
This movie is very pretty to look at and it is a good example of how to make a nice, nostalgic piece with great tunes that will undoubtedly bring a smile to your face.
The characters are just too unbelievable, though. Are we really supposed to accept that Seb is simply a misunderstood artist and Mia, despite never having put any work into playwriting despite once watching "Casablanca" in her early youth, suddenly is some dramaturgical prodigy? All while the two of them have the most basic, pretentious, "oh-look-at-me-I'm-so-edgy"-type conversations, that if heard in real life would earn nothing more than an exasperated eye-roll.
The fact that most of their relationship went unshown was explained to me as "mental shortcuts by the writers" but truthfully, if all I get to see from a relationship is a quick montage, a fight and a weird galaxy-dancing scene I can't really regard it as anything but silly.
Not to mention that "La La Land" followed two plot tropes that I just can't stand in movies (especially romantic ones), them being: a) cheating on your man (you're a woman in love, it's fine), b) overhearing a conversation and then assuming things.
Regarding a), so Mia's had this run-of-the-mill uptown boy and of course he deserves to be left at a dinner because he's just not Noah. Why couldn't Mia just have been single? Would it have really made such a difference? It perhaps would've shortened the picture by 10 minutes and saved me from my projected guilt.
Regarding b), there we have Noah, listening to a conversation that Mia has with her mother about steady jobs and artistry and he immediately assumes that "yes, that means she wants me to take that (for some reason OBVIOUSLY bad job) that I don't want and I'm not gonna talk to her about it, only months later will I flip my sh*t over it when she mentions it". Good logic, there, Noah.
Despite this movie trying it's hardest at being cool and artsy and all about the dreamers, I just couldn't suspend my disbelief. People like that don't act like that and they don't achieve things like that - not even in movie ("la la") land. The best thing real life Noah and Allie (the musical versions, too) could hope for would be shattered dreams and bitterness.
All of this is not say that movies about pretentious, misunderstood dreamers can't be inspiring and brilliant. They can, and they often are, as it seems that a lot of movies challenge this topic. "La La Land", for me personally, just tried too hard. They were too targeted, they pandered too much. Ironically, all I could do is advise them to "get more real".
Regardless of my qualms with this movie, anyone who is finds really nice music and golden-age nostalgia entertaining will certainly enjoy this motion picture (as did I, in the end). It's not as bad as some people suggest but it's certainly not as good, either.