The musical masterpiece of the century...

Rating: 10/10 (5 February 2017)

If you've only just heard about La La Land, you may be wondering what all the song and dance is about. But if you've been tracing its trajectory for a while, you'll know that song and dance is the whole idea.
The delectable new film from Damien Chazelle – winner of seven Golden Globes, recipient of 11 Bafta nominations, and the expected winner of the 89th Academy Award for Best Picture – is a musical. And not just any old musical, but the twirling, soaring kind that was last in style in the 1960s heyday of Jacques Demy, when Catherine Deneuve and Françoise Dorléac swished down sun-drenched boulevards in sorbet- coloured mini dresses, trilling glistening jazz-pop numbers that imprint themselves on your heart in one go.