La La Land has been nominated for fourteen Oscars, a distinction it shares with only All About Eve and Titanic. Will it become a classic? Time will tell.
But for now: Can anyone tell me what this movie is really about?
La La Land started out as a senior project and still feels like the work of a very smart film student who is better at talking than doing.
Is it just a good idea poorly executed? Director Damien Chazelle had a headful of iconic images from the great musicals of the past—Singin’ in the Rain and The Umbrellas of Cherbourg especially—that he wanted to put in a contemporary setting.
“Hollywood has to get over this notion that people can’t break into song,” Chazelle said. So why did he cast actors who can neither dance nor sing? Not that they didn’t try. Choreographer Mandy Moore who used real dancers whenever she could, said that the two leads, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, were “so open to movement and dance…They were vulnerable and really took a gamble.”
That sounds great—but it’s not on screen. What we see is two kids who approach each other tentatively like wallflowers at the Prom. They dance at arm’s length, checking their feet, hardly relating, their discomfiture painfully obvious to the viewer.
When the scene depicts two professional dancers whirling through a perfect waltz in the background in contrast to Gosling-Stone doing a Cotillion box-step up front, we know we’re not supposed to be inspired by their virtuosity.
But what does their awkwardness mean? Chazelle wants Gosling to replicate Gene Kelly’s swing around the lamppost in Singin’ in the Rain. Compare the stills: Kelly is fully extended, head thrown back, in perfect plié. Gosling half-swings with a tight, ironic smile as if to say, “This is kinda silly.”
Of course no non-dancer could be expected to duplicate Kelly’s perfect technique, filmed after weeks of rehearsal. But the emotion in Kelly’s movement, the joy of being so in love that you just “gotta dance”, is conspicuous by its absence.
Is Chazelle trying to insinuate a post-modern anti-heroic note into the unabashed romanticism of the musical form? Or is Gosling just an actor who can’t—or won’t—swing around a lamppost? Composer Justin Hurwitz has written a pleasant, risk-free score replete with standard spineless pop lyrics that lose their logic when analyzed. “Evokes the bittersweet majesty of George Gershwin,” raved Variety.
“The duets were tricky, because Ryan sounds best in one key and Emma sounds best in another,” said Hurwitz. But singing can’t be finessed like dancing. Stone has a chalk-on-the-blackboard voice, even when digitally smoothed. Gosling is determined to underplay everything to entropy.
The two giggle their way through the nominated song, “City of Stars.” Who are they kidding? The song? Themselves as singers?
[SPOILER ALERT] Chazelle ditched the standard boy-meets-girl, loses-girl, finds-girl plot that is a beloved staple of all the great musicals. “I just have a thing about love stories where the lovers don’t wind up together,” he said. ”I find it very romantic.” He tells the story of two kids trying to make it in show biz seeking to emulate the Gold Digger musicals or the Judy Garland-Gene Kelly vehicles.
Only the kids in those movies have talent and just need a break. Chazelle makes sure we know that the La La kids are dismal strivers who aren’t very good at their art. Ryan Gosling’s pianist Sebastian possesses the technique of a precocious ten year old. He dreams of jazz glory, but is lucky to have a job playing for noisy diners. He is rebuked (with good reason) by his boss for interrupting a Christmas song to play a tedious tune of his own composing.
Emma Stone plays Mia (good name for a depressed narcissist) a struggling actress who works as a barista on the Warner’s lot where the big perk is a golf cart to drive you across the street. We see her auditioning for small parts where she gives stock readings. No wonder she isn’t hired.
Sebastian and Mia meet in a traffic jam and it’s loathe at first sight. When they collide for a third time they bow to coincidence and give it a shot. After a clutzy courtship dance which should have convinced them that they have no chemistry, Sebastian aims a kiss at Mia and lands somewhere between her chin and lower lip. Is this an homage to the old Hollywood kiss which forbade mouth to mouth contact? Or simply two actors who can’t stand each other?
Sebastian and Mia embark on the most passionless love affair in film history. They hold hands, arms extended so their shoulders don’t touch. Kiss tepidly. Cuddle grudgingly Spend most of the time talking about their “dream.” Sebastian jams with a combo playing a horribly deformed mutant of swing and bop, which we hope never escapes the confines of the club. Enter John Legend who just has to have Sebastian for his new band. Reluctant to give up his “dream,” Sebastian finally accepts. He exchanges his first date sports jacket and tie (nominated) costume for the black silk of a sideman. Doesn’t look that different.
Meanwhile, Mia who looks like she’s been weeping herself to sleep, decides that lousy parts are holding her back and (like a good narcissist) plans a one woman show. Opening night only her friends show up. Sebastian is held up at a photo shoot and arrives late. Suddenly Sebastian is hot. Legend is featuring him. Groupies are clamoring. At a romantic dinner in which they toast each other with tap water he tells Mia he’ll be on the road for “years.” Sounds like a brush off to me.
Auditioning for stone-faced casting agents, Mia hypnotizes herself into a hallucinatory state where she goes off script and lives a dream sequence. At this point most casting people would have called security, but these people are moved to awed silence. Cut to an overline: FIVE YEARS LATER. Mia is getting a latte from an adoring barista and boarding a golf cart, which tells us she’s made it big. Sebastian is living like a monk frying fishcakes in a tiny studio kitchen. Mia goes home to an adoring male model husband and a toddler daughter.
Sebastian passes a huge mural of Mia’s face on his way into to his jazz club. Mia and hubby leave toddler with the smiling Mexican nanny and go out on the town. They hear jazz coming out of a club and wander in. It’s that same atonal combo. Sebastian grabs a mike and scolds the pianist. “You’re too good…” and then sits down to play his usual single note run up and down the keyboard to tumultuous applause.
Mia goes into another hallucinatory montage (she should see somebody about those) about what life might have been like with Sebastian and it’s the same life, even with the same baby. It’s as if Sebastian’s head has been transposed onto hubby’s body. Mia gets up from her table. Sebastian gets up from the piano. They stop. He gives her the enigmatic smile that worked for Brando. She smiles back. THE END.
Smattering of applause. Closing crawl. House lights up. Audience files out, smiling. They seem happy.
I’m sitting there wondering: what did I just see? It’s not a musical. It’s not a love story. Our characters haven’t changed. Sebastian hasn’t gotten any better. Mia’s not doing Shakespeare. They’re the same people, they just got lucky for a while.
What is Damien Chazelle trying to tell us? We can’t be as great as those that came before us? Can’t experience their intense emotion?
Or is he offering us a paean to our mediocrity? And his?
Heywood Gould’s film credits include Rolling Thunder, Fort Apache, the Bronx and Cocktail.
