Delightful duo are pitch perfect
La La Land (12A)
OK, confession time – I am not a big fan of movie musicals.
Yes, I can recognise the delightful sweetness of The Wizard of Oz and spent much of my childhood repeatedly watching Grease on video, but I’ve always been more than a little put off by people randomly bursting into song.
However, La La Land arrives in cinemas on the back of a wave of glowing reviews and hoovering up all seven awards it was nominated for at the prestigious Golden Globes – with further success at the Oscars widely tipped.
Knowing this going in, despite my slight musical aversion, my expectations were pretty high – and right from the outrageously impressive opening set on a crowded Los Angeles highway I was hooked.
La La Land is one of those rare movie experiences where it’s impossible not to leave the cinema with a big smile on your face.
It’s another triumph for writer-director Damien Chazelle who follows up Whiplash with a very different musically-themed tale that centres on the developing relationship between Ryan Gosling’s jazz pianist Sebastian and Emma Stone’s aspiring actress Mia.
Stone and Gosling shared phenomenal chemistry in 2011 rom-com Crazy, Stupid, Love and the pair are off-the-charts again here in a magical bond worthy of comparison with genre icons Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers.
Any worries over the duo’s ability to carry tunes is dispersed within minutes and the thought of them not ending up together and riding off into the sunset is enough to make you consider organising a mass cinema sit-in at the end of the film in protest.
Inevitable comparisons have been made with the MGM musicals of the forties and fifties and Chazelle has done his homework as he helms with vibrant vigour using a lavish colour palette that resembles a rainbow pulled from the sky and sprinkled all over LA.
It’s hard to single out one musical number or showpiece, but Mia and Sebastian’s visit to an observatory is the type of breathtaking sequence the big screen was made for.
Perhaps unsurprisingly given Whiplash’s grippingly caustic tone, Chazelle doesn’t make things all sweetness and light for his lead pair as the challenge of making it big in the entertainment industry are laid bare.
Gosling and Stone dominate proceedings but everyone plays their part in the largerscale song and dance routines and there are nice cameos from Whiplash Oscar winner JK Simmons and musician John Legend.
The songs – created by composer Justin Hurwitz and lyricists Benj Pasek and Justin Paul – are instantly catchy and you’ll be humming them in the shower for days to come.
Those obsessed with finding flaws may bristle at the two-hour-plus running time and lack of musical numbers in the latter stages.
But when a trip to the flicks is as much fun as the touching, warm and joyous La La Land, you can take those frowns and turn them upside down.