At this point, the majority of people know about La La Land; even if they were unfamiliar with the film, they are now at least aware of the “Steve Harvey Moment” at the Oscars. I won’t lie, I was intrigued by this movie—all of Facebook was raving about the film. A group of my friends wanted to go see it shortly after winter break, so I tagged along. I didn’t really have any preconceived notions about what the film was going to be about. All I knew who the two leads were, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, and that it was a musical.
The opening had me on the edge of my seat. It was fresh, and was what Hollywood has been missing for a while: an original musical. The opening scene reminded me greatly of legendary Broadway musicals like Singing in the Rain, which gave me high hopes for the rest of the film.
This hope soon faded.
Unpopular opinion: I am one of few people who was not all that impressed with La La Land.
La La Land is unique from many other popular movies out right now. Most notably, it isn’t a spinoff of any book or movie. It was an original story that highlighted the struggles of making it big in Hollywood. The lyrics, the music and score, the contrast of songs—it was all incredible. However, this is about where my accolades for the movie ends. Although La La Land featured one of my favorite music genres—brassy jazz—it eventually fell flat.
I’ll start off with the obvious, the vocals were not impressive. Besides name recognition, I will never understand who thought it was a good idea to cast two non-singers as leads in a musical. When it comes down to it, La La Land is a musical. I expected the vocals and music to be good. However, I ended up being very underwhelmed between Gosling’s raspy talking-singing combo and Stone’s whispery vocals. However, I will give credit where it’s due: “Audition (Fools Who Dream)” was incredibly moving, well performed, and added unique themes to the plot. Whenever I bring up this point to my friends, I am instantly shut down with “the singing wasn’t the point,” or “the vocals weren’t supposed to be good,” or— my favorite—“it’s a love story about two non-singers, so why should they be good singers?” I’m sorry—if I pay money to see a musical, I expect the vocals (you know, the human instrument) to be impressive.
My next point: the story isn’t as heartfelt as the advertisement made it out to be. After thinking about the plot a little more deeply, I realized this notion of sweet young love is a hoax. La La Land is not about young lovers trying to find their place in the world. What it’s really about is two young aspiring stars, absorbed by self-interested pursuits, putting their career ahead of their significant other and relationship. This sends viewers the message that our careers are more important than our relationships, and that we shouldn’t sacrifice one for the other. While I realize dreams are important, there is a better way to go about your dreams, and this film does a poor job of representing that. In general, the story was not relatable to the average individual. It may have been relatable for those living in “La La Land” (aka. Hollywood); but for a college student, their depiction of life was off. I understand that not all movies have to be relatable, but most movies that are not necessarily relatable at least highlight important themes or important events from history. La La Land failed to do any of this. However, “Audition (Fools Who Dream)” brought up some interesting points about taking that big step into adulthood and taking a big risk to see where it takes you. Yet, it took an hour and a half to bring up this one and only theme.
The roles that Gosling and Stone played were nothing new. They are both very talented at what they do, but they consistently play the same roles in different movies. Was I the only person who was reminded of Noah from The Notebook by Gosling’s character in La La Land? While he pulls off his new role well, it just gets boring. I was unimpressed. Sure, he sang in this film, but he did not do that well. Honestly, it would have been worth it to watch The Notebook another time to avoid the singing in this film.
All in all, La La Land was overhyped. The film had the potential to be so much, yet it fell flat. I was actually really excited to see this movie, but I honestly should have just stayed home. Maybe I would have had a different reaction if I went into it when it first came out, without all the media hype around it.
This movie could have been so much better with a better cast. I will tell you, there are names just as big as Gosling and Stone that would have given the soundtrack the justice it deserves. When it comes down to it, the casting was its downfall— the movie was good at best.