A love poem to the myth of Hollywood

Rating: 8/10 (8 January 2017)

LA LA LAND: Spoiler Alert - this is a movie MUSICAL. Characters randomly SING and DANCE in said MUSICAL, frequently with no warning. There are several occurrences of HOPE and JOY in said MUSICAL. Such occurrences may be an anathema to your personal world view. This review is an attempt to defend the aforementioned motion picture MUSICAL specifically, and the above referenced occurrences, generally. You have been warned.
Hell yes, I am bitter. How could I not be, with practically everything I love being cheapened or destroyed by going digital, with America (or is it 1933 Germany) days from being governed by the most amoral kleptocracy imaginable, and with the human race basically shrugging off finding practical science-based remedies to save our only planet? I know I am not alone.
And so it seems appropriate, even fashionable, to be cynical. Survey the sum output of the Hollywood juggernaut and ask yourself how many films, TV shows, and recordings are steeped in a nihilistic world view, and conversely how many are at their core hopeful. Between dour entertainment and the-sky-is-falling social media, it makes one want to never wake up. Yet when something different comes along - a piece of work that tries to embrace joie de vivre, people can't wait to trash it. A few of my friends claim to have walked out of La La Land, and several more hated watching it. It begs a question: what would they prefer instead?
Writer-director Damien Chazelle has emerged with a singular gift for creating characters driven to the edge of disaster by their fervor to do good work. In Whiplash, both Miles Teller and J.K. Simmons found profound inspiration in their characters' drive. In La La Land, the auteur has written Emma Stone's aspiring actress Mia and Ryan Gosling's jazz pianist Sebastian with similar uncompromising passions, and in a story arc as old as the movies, they must each lose his way and almost give up on her dreams before finding, at their lowest ebb, the missing piece that leads them to artistic fulfillment. Cliché, yes, but isn't that still the dream of the adventure we call Hollywood? Isn't that why thousands still venture to the coast from every corner, willing to subsist on PA and extra work while taking acting classes, mounting original plays, making short films, performing songs at open mics, or burning the midnight oil working on screenplays?
In a world scarred by relentless cynicism, how can one not admire the ambition and unabashed optimism to make an old-fashioned musical? Even if it's far from perfect? Even if some songs are just passable? Even if the lead actors aren't the best singers or dancers? Even if Mandy Moore's choreography is only sometimes inspired? Even if, and this is a big one for me, Gosling's fingers aren't anywhere close to matching the sound coming out of the piano? Ryan said he took three months of piano lessons to prepare for the role, but the directorial choice to use his hands in closeup when he clearly can't play is a head scratcher. But still. This movie got made!
The true star of this show is DP Linus Sandgren and his team's exceptional, fluid cinematography. While not the most technically perfect images of the year, the sheer effort of precision required to choreograph and capture a five minute thirty second dance routine with hundreds of dancers, and dozens of camera marks to hit, in focus, in rapid succession, perfectly in sync with the music, and all without hitting anyone in the head in a SINGLE TAKE is mind boggling. Several of the dance routines are single take affairs at magic hour. No pressure there! Sandgren's bold color choices and complex lighting cues make the film a joy to watch.
If we can, for two hours, believe that people can fight battles with light sabers, or that Spiderman can scale buildings, why is it so hard to believe that friends can break into song to express how they feel? It's all movie magic, all make believe, and it all requires that good old-fashioned suspension of disbelief.
Mia, at the end of her rope, poignantly sings her way through an acting audition in a moment of magical realism that is the crux of this picture. It's a perfect distillation of the requisite sacrifice required to live as an artist. It is her Somewhere Over the Rainbow moment: the universal longing for a life less ordinary. For me, it was heartbreakingly real.
Hollywood friends, if your sense of hope is not hale, if your lust for the dream not vibrant, if you are unwilling to let your heart be broken with every audition, every pitch, in the hope that out there somewhere lies a big confirming payoff for your endless sacrifice, then why, seriously, are you still at it?
This movie rekindled my fire. Here's to the ones who dream.