LIKE’s

1. The opening sequence
It’s a traffic jam in LA: the most glorious, technicolor snarl-up you’ve ever seen, sunshine saturating the cars, everyone in primary colours like a giant, singing Mondrian, and then they start dancing. It is, hands down, the most achieved choreography I’ve seen on screen since Cabaret. Scores, maybe a couple of hundred dancers swirl round each other and leap across their cars, a cross between Busby Berkeley and parkours. According to Damian Chazelle, the director, when the cast finished shooting they were too exhilarated to go home. They just stood round the monitors watching the rushes, and had to get pizzas in.

2.Emma Stone 

Ryan Gosling is terrific in La La Land, valuable to the film, and I love that his character is an unapologetic, antisocial hermit, but this film wouldn’t be what it is without Emma Stone’s dynamite Mia Dolan. Ever since she burst into the mainstream in Zombieland, Superbad and Easy A, it’s been clear that this woman’s comedic chops are remarkable. She’s never not been great, and she showed new depth and range in her Oscar-nominated role in Birdman.

As Mia, Stone eclipses everything she’s ever done. There’s so much in this performance that I find something new every time I watch the film. She’s perfectly cast in this movie that harkens so much back to the glory of classic Hollywood, as her comic timing and Old Hollywood glamour is a pairing rarely seen since stars like Miriam Hopkins (Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde, 1931) and Kay Francis (Trouble in Paradise, 1932).

But she’s not just funny and beautiful. Mia’s story was rewritten to feature much of Stone’s own struggles as an aspiring actress, and she exposes the bruised heart of a dreamer. When she temporarily gives up on her dreams and moves back home at the beginning of act three, you feel her pain, her despair, in your gut. And she’s unexpectedly heartbreaking in the end as a woman who gets everything she ever wanted, or does she? Stone is a front runner for the Oscar, and if anyone is going to beat Isabelle Huppert‘s titanic turn in Elle, I’m happy to see Stone dance away with the honor.

3. Musical smarts

There’s a reason why the film has had an admiring a critical response as it has had a popular one: it is a genuinely knowledgeable, deeply respectful homage to the entire form of the written-for-screen musical. Sure, it’s an art form that passes some people by, but those who love it really love it. Damien Chazelle had a reputation already for Whiplash, the unlikely hit about a drummer, but his partnership with Justin Hurwitz, the composer, dates from years before, when they met at Harvard and wrote an original musical as a joint dissertation, which I totally did not know you were allowed to do at Harvard.

4. The Music Grows On You
The first time I saw La La Land, I loved it, but I wasn’t completely taken with Justin Hurwitz‘s score. In hindsight, I’ve noted that the, let’s say rustic, arthouse theater in which I saw the film simply doesn’t have a great sound system. See this movie on the biggest screen you can find : God forbid you see this movie on your TV or your laptop, and make sure the cinema has a great sound system to boot. The score is rousing and enormous, and Hurwitz’s fusion of genuine jazz with pop is remarkable and fresh. And the songs grow on you. My personal favorite is “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)”, a tribute to dreamers and creative people everywhere, sung by Stone. To note that Stone and Gosling don’t have the most tremendous voices is to miss the point—their voices may be slight; they’re also incredibly soulful and expressive. I’ll say it again—this score really grows on you. The movie has only been out for two months, and I already know it. 

5. This Is So Much More Than Just a Musical

One of the predominant criticisms of La La Land is that it falls short of the great Hollywood musicals it references—Singin’ in the Rain, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Footlight Parade, etc. That argument isn’t valid because La La Land doesn’t aspire to be Singin’ in the Rain. Chazelle’s film is driven more by its stellar screenplay than it is by the music. There are musical numbers in La La Land, but this is also a credible showbiz saga as it should go without saying that this movie nails Los Angeles, a witty and nimble comedy, and a romantic melodrama. La La Land has a much smarter and richer screenplay than most of the musicals its critics are looking to judge it by.

6. But It’s One ‘Hell’ of A Musical

While we’re on the subject, though, let’s discredit the critics of La La Land who want to say this thing doesn’t excel as a musical. There aren’t many musical numbers in the film, but what’s there is truly spectacular. The curtain-raiser (“Another Day of Sun”), a staggering song-and-dance number shot on location in a Los Angeles traffic jam—an icon of the city if there ever was one, is exhilarating to watch, and thematically sets up the film perfectly.

Ryan Gosling’s melancholy delivery of “City of Stars” on the Hermosa Beach pier which outfitted for the film with moody vintage street lamps is downright haunting. The aforementioned “Audition (The Fools Who Dream)” is wrenchingly powerful, a resounding love letter to creative people everywhere. Filmed in one take, it might be the scene that wins Emma Stone an Academy Award. Also shot in one take is the now-iconic tap dance (“A Lovely Night”) against the Los Angeles sunset in Griffith Park. Yes, that was captured in one six-minute take.

And that backdrop isn’t digital; it’s the real Los Angeles skyline, shot at just the right time. The classic musicals that La La Land’s naysayers would like to compare it with were shot entirely on sound stages. Chazelle’s intoxicating technical blend of the theatrical and fanciful with realism reflects the story he’s telling. Which brings me to that ending.

7. The Ending

Oh, the ending! The film’s epilogue (“Epilogue”) is a dreamy, poetic, seven-minute ballet that is stagey in all the right ways, and makes it even more clear to us that Chazelle has a natural, ingrained instinct for how to shoot this kind of thing—as if everything that we’ve seen up to this point wasn’t enough. The techniques on display in this sequence are varied, judiciously chosen, and the effect is dazzling; there’s a sweeping moment of extreme deep staging involving a globe of the world that takes my breath every time I see it. And just like the rest of La La Land, the epilogue isn’t just a stunning technical achievement; it’s not just empty thrills.

The finale opens up the film, and Chazelle drives home his ambitious vision of truth and reality in La La Land. The takeaway for me is the love story here. At risk of understatement, this is a cinematic love story for the ages. Not only because it’s so brilliantly written and performed, this is also a story we haven’t seen on screen before, at least certainly not done this well.

This story is about two creative people, wildly ambitious and all but defined by their dreams, who really see each other and help each other. They help each other’s lofty dreams come true, even though it’s at the cost of their relationship, which seems like true love. It’s a painful ending that couldn’t be more dramatically satisfying. Endings are hard, and with Whiplash and now this, it would appear Chazelle is a master of them. Like that of his previous film, the ending of La La Land is ambiguous, provocative, and it lingers in memory. This ending is the reason the word “bittersweet” was invented.