Uplifting, sweet centred detour from the norm

Rating: 9/10 (6 March 2017)

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Mia (Emma Stone) is a barista on a Hollywood film set, who dreams of becoming a famous actress, but keeps having bad luck on auditions. She crosses paths with Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a brash, abrasive musician, who also wants to make it big, and is frustrated at anyone's inability to appreciate jazz. Although irritated by Sebastian's manner, Mia does admire his musical ability, and on this tender footnote they develop a friendship that blossoms into romance, and the ups and downs their paths take from this point.
Damian Chazelle's glossy celebration of Hollywood from a time gone by suffered at the cruel, mocking hands of fate in the most humiliating of ways over the last fortnight, when the unbelievable drama of Oscars night unfolded across the mainstream media and, after being announced as the winner of Best Picture, it turned out this was a mistake, and the award actually went to the urban drama Moonlight. While drawing more attention to this catastrophic farrago seems tactless, I had been planning to see it even if this hadn't happened, and Oscar embarrassment aside, it's still a swirling, magical re-ignition of a genre that was popular in the golden age of Hollywood.
While it's a celebration of something from a by-gone age, it's very much updated to modern times, capturing all the funk, style and spirit of the modern music and fashion scene, and so enthralling to those who are fans of musicals from the olden days, and appealing to those who are up on current trends. Considering the nature of both the main characters, lead stars Gosling and Stone are inspired choices, since their personalities match their demeaneurs so well, Gosling's moody, withdrawn but appealing character perfectly complimenting Stone's sturdy, downtrodden but hopeful and resilient heroine.
And, just so it doesn't forget what it is that makes it so appealing to modern audiences, the song and dance numbers are perfectly magical too, really springing to life at the right moments and lighting up an already beautiful homage to the bygone musical. ****