I’m going to be honest. I was ecstatic when “La La Land” lost the Oscar for Best Picture to “Moonlight.” Not just pleased, but ecstatic. Elated. Overjoyed.
Partially because “Moonlight” is brilliant and beautiful and groundbreaking in terms of the representation it brings to the cinematic world, but also because I felt that “La La Land” was pretty mediocre. While I know that this is a relatively unpopular opinion and that I will more than likely get some backlash for it, here are the five biggest issues I had with this movie (and yes, there will be spoilers toward the end so proceed with caution if you haven’t seen it yet).
1. The casting
Now, I love Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as much as the next person (well, I suppose that depends on who the next person is because they have some serious die-hard fans, but I digress). I’ve seen movies in which they have been perfectly cast for the roles they were given. The thing about those movies, though, is that they weren’t musicals. I’m not saying that my ears were irreparably damaged by this film or anything. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone aren’t painfully tone-deaf, but by no means does that mean they can actually sing. The fact that their voices aren’t abysmal doesn’t negate the fact that their voices are mediocre, and “La La Land” was intended to be a movie musical. No offense @Hollywood, but when casting a musical, please cast people who can sing as well as act. I’ve been in the audience of various Broadway audiences since I was five, so I know for a fact that those people are out there.
2. The songs
While we’re at it, the voices weren’t the only problem with the music. If there’s one thing that my years of being a theatre person have taught me, it’s that songs can make or break a musical. In this case, I didn’t feel that the music did this film any favors for a number of reasons. For one thing, most of them didn’t advance the plot in any meaningful way. The opening number struck me as being there exclusively because movie musicals must have opening numbers, it’s a rule. I was expecting the girl with the first solo in the entire film to be a meaningful character, but nope! The vast majority of the people appearing in that number popped up, danced around on their cars for a bit (during a song that did little to nothing for the storyline to begin with) and then disappeared, never to be seen again. Exacerbating the issue of songs that appeared to serve no discernable function, many of the musical breaks were awkwardly placed. Most of the moments when characters burst into song felt contrived rather than organic to me; the song placement just generally felt like the movie was trying too hard to be a musical.
3. The emotional resonance (or lack thereof)
Speaking of trying too hard, I felt like the film really REALLY wanted to convey a beautiful emotional message. I respect that. I really do respect what it was going for. But for me, it quite simply didn’t work. In my experience, most good art has an underlying honesty to its message — some sort of authentically human emotional component that allows the audience to connect in some capacity. And while I understand that articfice was intentionally one of the central themes of the film, the development of the two protagonists’ relationship felt forced (maybe it was just the actors’ chemistry that was lacking?) and really couldn’t resonate with me.
4. The anachronisms
Yes, I know, it was intentional, I get it. I do. And don’t get me wrong, it was pretty. Aesthetically, this movie was consistently beautiful and while I didn’t particularly enjoy watching it, I absolutely enjoyed looking at it. The design elements were gorgeous. But rather than contributing to the timeless aesthetic the designers were clearly shooting for, the blending of elements from various eras felt jarring and repeatedly distracted me from the scenes in progress.
5. The racial commentary
This is undoubtedly the biggest issue I had with the film, and why I was so excited when it turned out that “Moonlight” won. Did you notice that all of the jazz musicians but Ryan Gosling were black? Jazz is first and foremost a black art form. The fundamental premise of this movie was ~ white man rescues black art form from obscurity because black people couldn’t do it themselves ~ and that didn’t sit well with me. Furthermore, when the black musicians tried to revamp their style to make it more accessible to mainstream America, despite their popularity and success, this still was not framed in a positive light.
Instead, the movie framed it as selling out, at which point Ryan Gosling’s character peaces out because of his Artistic Integrity™, but then somehow manages to singlehandedly bring a black art form back into being popular, and is somehow now owning/running everything. So by the end of the film, everyone but him in the entire jazz scene is still black, it’s just that they work for him now? The entire plot of the movie was premised on appropriation, and the film industry needs to be more conscious of the scope, implications, and context of the representation it provides, assuming that racial representation occurs at all. I mean, let’s be real here — the hashtag #OscarsSoWhite didn’t evolve out of nowhere.
I wanted to like this movie. I genuinely did. This was one of the many times when I walked into a cinema, did my best to turn off my intersectional feminist sensibilities for two hours, and got excited to see what all the fuss was about. By the time I left, I was ultimately both deeply offended and generally underwhelmed. I expected and continue to expect more from new movie musicals, both intellectually and artistically. And I know it’s possible to get there.