‘La La Land’

Modern-day Hollywood gets the golden age treatment in ‘La La Land’ (2016).

A musical drama written and directed by Damien Chazelle (‘Whiplash’) starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling in their third cinematic pairing après ‘Crazy, Stupid, Love’ and ‘Gangster Squad’.

Marrying the old Hollywood aesthetic with a more contemporary story of trying to make it in Tinseltown, ‘La La Land’ expounds on the auditions, the rejections and the stress of being an aspiring actress and a pedantic jazz pianist in a city where they’re a dime a dozen.

Peppered with musical numbers and shot in CinemaScope, the film sounds good, looks great but does flirt with the problematic in its core premise of a white musician trying to preserve and even save an originally black genre of music while the most developed black character seems to sell out for a cheque.

The white male saviour narrative continues in relation to Stone’s character as the male protagonist literally has to drag her back to her dreams while he remains noble and necessary throughout.

A little overrated in terms of entertainment value and performance, ‘La La Land’, nevertheless, is nominated for a record 14 Oscars including Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Director, Best Picture and Best Original Song.

See this if you like musicals, the actors and what everyone else is raving about.

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