An overwhelming ode to the City of Stars

Rating: 10/10 (9 January 2017)

Thoroughly engaging and moving at the same time! I remember being floored by The Artist (2011's Academy Award winning Best Picture) and it's still one of my favorites. On a similar level, La La Land celebrates the transporting power of the movies with music and magic that never feels routine, rather, a heartfelt ode to cinema itself.
It isn't just a musical either. Like The Artist before, this is a very simple film (none of that mind bending stuff) but also brutally honest on the harsh and often destructive nature of show biz; while the media is always ravenous for Hollywood scandals, what we don't often see are the painful choices and sacrifices these artists have had to make. And for that reason La La Land isn't just a device to revive musicals but also a heart wrenching account of what it takes to be successful in show biz. Kudos to Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, not just for their Velcro-like chemistry but also for perfecting that colossal irony often expected at the movies – a happy ending. That ending segment when we see what could have happened was almost unbearable but it's also the director revealing the quintessential soul of this film – and for me, it is in a perpetual state of enchanting melancholy.