Nostalgic, colorful and so much fun.

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2019)

La La Land is a callback to old timey muscial movies infused with fun and technicolor. From the opening scene where we find a group of people stuck on the freeway who suddenly break into song and dance to the closing notes it never forgets why it was made. And that's to entertain and remind us of the Golden Age of cinema when big bombastic musicals were the rage.
What really sets this one apart, other than the time it was made, is that the main actors namely Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, aren't necessarily trained singers and dancers. They're capable and they're able to pull it off but there's this note of amateurishness about them. Not a bad thing, in fact it makes this feel a lot more "real". We've all had those moments that, for whatever reason, we do a little jig or maybe we sing a bit along to the radio and honestly most people don't have any training in these things. So it's refreshing when somebody who isn't a pro does so.
Color also plays a big part in this. You can see it from the opening scene where everybody is dressed in bright, solid colors as they sing and dance along the freeway to when the girls go out to a party, each in their own brightly colored dress. It evokes the old films that were filmed in technicolor where everything was bright and colorful simply because they could show such a thing.
The story follows two individuals. One is a musician who is in love with jazz and dreams of opening his own jazz club. The other is a struggling actress who loves old cinema. Again, these are call backs to older movies and musicals. It follows them through their life as they chase their dreams and fall in love. It's all rather charming and it leads to a conclusion that a lot of people found offputting but I felt suited the tone rather well.
It's a shame this didn't win the oscar but it did win multiple awards so that's something.