I love musicals and it’s basically the only music I actually listen to these days, everything from Broadway to the random musical episodes of TV shows. I couldn’t of been more excited for a new original musical film, the first original live action musical since Newsies in 1992. Lets get this out of the way first, I love listening to the soundtrack to this film. It’s fun and exciting and each song is great on it’s own. I find myself in my car seeing it on my iPhone and choosing to listen to it when I drive to work.
Okay now with that out of the way it is time to basically confuse you all as I say this is barely a musical. I know I know I just said I love the music and it’s amazing and I dance around to it. The film however is completely different to the great adventure of listening to the soundtrack. I found myself in the cinema excited for the film to start. Running a little late I was worried that I was going to miss the start, I was ecstatic about it. I dragged my girlfriend, who didn’t see the appeal of the film from the trailers, to go see an advanced screening of it. I later had to apologise for what I made her sit through as somehow all my expectations had just been destroyed and I left the cinema almost sad that a film I was so excited about turned out to be nothing more than your average oscar buzz drama about a romance you can see in most films. The film wasn’t a musical, wasn’t a film that was praised as being the revival of the musical film genre, the soundtrack is but the film certainly isn’t.
The film was slow, too long and trying to be something else when all it needed to be is a simple musical about two people who are stuck in the modern day when they would both fare better if they were born earlier when their professions were more relevant and less difficult to keep a grasp on. They were born when their dreams were all they could aim for and not be distracted by the other goals they can chase. The look of the film keeps drifting from what it set itself to be and changing to display how the world is changing and how things like music are different nowadays when it didn’t need to and it could’ve easily done it in the story and not in both. I love Chazelle’s previous film Whiplash. Whiplash was a film that literally hit the right beat and made me appreciate the difficult and exciting genre of music that Jazz is. La La Land didn’t do that because it was spreading itself so much that instead of it being an hour and forty minute masterpiece about how the world is harsh yet love, romance and your true goals always break through the difficult times, it was instead all mixed up and ended up being a 2 hour and eight minute film trying to be several different things at once.
Now for my main gripe of the film, the fact that it’s apparently a musical. It isn’t a musical but more of a drama where the main characters sing and dance sometimes. I sing and dance sometimes but my life isn’t a musical because I don’t do it so often that it’s the main part of my life. Lets take a look at La La Land and some musical films and compare the amount of songs and how long it usually is in the film until the next song.
As you can see there is an insane difference between La La Land and other musicals. There is even a significant difference between La La Land and Singin in the Rain which is a musical that the film is trying to be like. The soundtrack to La La Land is one of my favourite film soundtracks but many films that aren’t musicals also have amazing soundtracks and that is where La La Land lies because the amount of time it takes to get to a song isn’t short enough. Yes it isn’t going to be like Les Mis but I can only wonder if the film was shorter and had at least two more songs then it could’ve easily been the film I wanted it to be. A film that was going to shoot to the top of my favourite films but instead it is lost in it’s own identity and ends up being disappointing.
Despite the rant I just went on I would watch the film again and give it another opportunity and maybe that’s what I need to do. Maybe I missed the magic but it shouldn’t be that easy to miss the magic if it was truly there. A film that has a main focus on judging on first impressions should be able to achieve a fantastic first impression and not need me to watch it again. I’m still listening to the soundtrack and I still will despite my disappointment in the film. I still love Ryan Gosling who single handedly manage to make the film a little enjoyable because of his always fantastic acting. I implore you to go watch this film ignoring the buzz around it and just enjoy it as you could end up liking it heaps or hate it. Maybe my viewing of the film was betrayed by the high expectations I already had but if it was truly the masterpiece it’s meant to be then that wouldn’t make a difference.
Expectation Level: Extremely High
Expectations no way achieved, Songs in the soundtrack did.
Score: 2.5/5 – Not the film it is being advertised as and it is confused itself in what it should be but I would still watch it again and give it another opportunity but the next time I’m going in watching it as a drama and not the revival of the musical genre.