Is that all there is?

Rating: 6/10 (19 December 2016)

I haven't lived in Los Angles in almost thirty years and was curious to see a movie about the present day city. I was really quite surprised to find that there appear to be no same sex couples there.... not on the streets, in restaurants and clubs, at parties... anywhere! Of course, lack of LGBT representation doesn't make this a bad movie and the fact that there wasn't a hint of even a token LGBT character doesn't really mean much because, other than the two lovers, there weren't any characters to speak of. OK, there was John Legend's who has about six lines of dialog and a big song that really has nothing to do with the narrative. There was a sister.... what happened to her? and the room mates.... what happened to them? the restaurant owner?
I can think of two other musicals that rely almost entirely on the give and take in a relationship: "I do! I do!" was a hit on Broadway but that at least follows the couple over the course of fifty years. A more recent movie, "The Last Five Years", probably has much more in common with "La La Land", but that movie rates a 5.9 on IMDb and this one is currently clocking a stupendous 8.9
My guess is that if the two main characters really connect with your inner daydream this movie will really resonate for you. Let's face it, the notion that Mia would somehow write a one woman show, pull together the money to rent a theater and mount a production, give up completely and return to Nevada, be called in by a director who somehow has the funds for a movie and a location, Paris, but no script.... and presumably tracks her down to offer her both the lead and the script-writing, all on the strength of one performance? This is clearly daydream territory. So, be my guest, dream on. It's just that I didn't particularly like either character and that leaves me being entertained, up to a point, by everything else. The singing was OK, the dancing too. The music was OK. The snappy production was impressive but I personally preferred the long, live, takes and the more realistic look of "The Last Five Years", a movie that never got the hype that surrounds this one.
So that brings me back, in a way, to my original point. Twenty-five years ago "Newsies" was a major studio re-launch of the classic movie musical. I remember that it got some the worst reviews I have ever seen and bombed at the box office. Even now, after selling zillions of VCR and DVD units, and spawning an, originally overlooked, but eventually smash hit Broadway production it only rates a 6.9 here. Could that be because it was directed by Kenny Ortega and features a cast of dancing paperboys, and not the dreamy pairing of Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone?
So my point would be that "La La Land" is really awesome as the ultimate heterosexual movie musical of our time. It's not fabulous and it clearly doesn't want to be. It traces its origins back to Fred and Ginger, or Gene and Debbie, but without the aid of Edward Everett and Helen, or Donald and Jean or any of the characters that helped to make those movies so memorable. And so I would ask, "Is that all there is?"