La La Land - Film Review (Spoilers)

It may be a love letter to classic Hollywood, but La La Land sometimes feels a bit too twee.

When all is said and done, I liked La La Land quite a bit in fact, but it didn't quite engage or connect with me in quite the way it wanted too. In parts it wants to serenade a dying genre, but also try and reinvigorate it, but it ends up caught between the two, and struggles to make something coherent.

That's why its also kind of difficult to talk about the film, with one hand its trying new things, and with the other its doggedly sticking to the ideals of the past. For every cliched plot point it adhere's to, it does something new and interesting, for every overlong musical number, it does something heartwarming and romantic. The perfect example of this must be the ending (spoilers, duh), it has the generic happy ending where the aspiring actress gets her lucky break and goes on to become a film star (yawn), which feels dull and not entirely earned. But then the film has the guts to give us an unconventional ending were the two leads don't actually end up together, and the film is far better for it.

And that's just kind of the main problem, the film just feels a bit to lightweight for the majority of the film, expect the great ending, the majority of it feels like just another love at first sight romance film. Now, don't get me wrong this isn't a remotely bad film, the absolute amazing production design is truly breathtaking at times, with the style and  incredible attention to detail resulting in a film that's just enjoyable to look at. There is a real sense of love on screen, not from the leads, but from the filmmakers, who seemed to have poured so much care and attention into every frame, its just a shame that the story for the most part feels like its about fifty years to late. That's not to say the story is bad, it just doesn't keep up with the rest of the film.

I also obviously have to talk about the music (as it is a musical), but unfortunately it is another area where it is kind of a mixed bag for me. There are some truly standout songs throughout the film, but there are also a fair few forgettable ones that fail to endear themselves in anyway. There are also a few too many musical sequences that just go on for too long, and to me they just feel outdated and just another forced throw back to days of films gone by.

In the end, its hard not admire the sheer amount of care that has gone into making this film, but the more I think about it the less I care for it. But for a while I was completely entranced by the spectacle of it all, but unfortunately that faded a bit too quickly.

Rating: 7/10