USA TODAY International Edition
‘ La La Land’ finale has fans stepping carefully
Bittersweet or not, musical’s ‘ what- if ’ raises questions
Caution: Major spoilers on how La La Land ends are ahead.
If you haven’t seen La La Land yet, stop reading now.
But if you have, you’ve taken in the sweeping dance ballet finale of Mia ( Emma Stone) and Sebastian’s ( Ryan Gosling) love story. You’ve seen her go off to Paris and become a major movie star. You’ve seen him finally open his throwback jazz club.
And you’ve found out that to get there, they had to leave each other behind.
Since Damien Chazelle’s modern musical scored a record- tying 14 Oscar nominations, ticket buyers have debated its merits, with some calling the film “life- affirming food for the soul” and others declaring it a “nostalgic, easily forgettable romance.”
Sunday’s Academy Awards will decide its awards haul, but how will history remember its curtain call?
Audiences are emotionally divided on the film’s finale, with some finding the takeaway of La La Land’s fork- in- the- road ending a wrenching sacrifice of love for success, while others have found the plot realistic and even optimistic, showing life offers more than one path forward.
“The first time I saw La La Land, I was utterly heartbroken by those final scenes and the revelation that, hey, these crazy kids really didn’t make it after all,” says Kate Erbland, film editor at IndieWire. com. “It seemed like such a gut- wrenching twist after everything the pair had been through.”
She adds: “After subsequent rewatches, I’ve managed to get at least a pragmatic handle on the way the story ends, but I still find the ‘ what if ’ sequence to be the very best example of the film’s emotional and imaginative power. It’s just lovely, so well- made and so charming, all with a deep melancholy that’s hard to shake.”
Others were left with more of a lift. “To me, the ending says that some partners enter our lives to inspire us, even if they don’t end up being our soulmate for life,” says Dave Karger of IMDb. com. “Without each other, Mia and Se- bastian would never achieved their dreams.”
Ultimately keeping Mia and Sebastian apart was key, Chazelle says. “It was kind of an acknowledgment about the fact that life doesn’t always completely live up to the perfect version that we have in our heads, but that that’s OK. Like in a way acknowledging the disappointment of that but making that disappointment be beautiful.”
After Mia enters Sebastian’s jazz club with her husband ( Tom Everett Scott), her ex sits down at the piano and plays a note from the soundtrack of their courtship. The camera pulls back, and a “what if ” scenario begins.
Sebastian and Mia dance through this dialogue- free dream sequence, with the set pieces growing more abstract.
“Let’s give them the old- fashioned musical version of their story, where there’s no real conflict and we can be left to reflect, ‘ Is that actually better than what happened? Or are they actually in an even better place in real life than they would be there?’ ” Chazelle says. “That’s the question the audience can be left with.” have