While I was out of town in Reno, I had the immense pleasure of getting to see La La Land. This movie has been receiving tons of awards and praise, so is it worth all of the hype? I have to say that it is a pretty amazing movie, but I don’t think it’s the best movie of the year that I have seen. I have heard many praise this movie as an absolute masterpiece and with expectations that high, it’s hard not to be a little disappointed. Don’t get me wrong, I really did love this movie, but I found myself looking for something a little deeper in the film that wasn’t there.

(Photo credit to magazine2.movie.daum.net)

First the positives of the movie. This movie deserves every award it received for cinematography because it was absolutely breathtaking. The colors of the movie were vibrant and gave it life. I found myself constantly in awe of the way the camera moved and it felt more like I was apart of the story than simply viewing a movie. Whenever people came towards the camera singing and dancing, I felt like I was surrounded by the beautiful music. Speaking of music, that is another wonderful aspect of La La Land. I had to hold back my applause in the movie theater every time there was a musical number. Even if Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling aren’t the best singers in Hollywood, they still sounded authentic and pleasing to the ear. I was never blown away by either of their vocals, but they were both still quite good and real. There was no auto-tune that I noticed and I appreciated that. My favorite songs would have to be City of Stars and Fools Who Dream. The soundtrack from this movie is constantly running through my mind, even after seeing it a couple of weeks ago. Lastly, the acting in La La Land was phenomenal. I found myself relating to Mia, played by Emma Stone, and Ryan Gosling was as charming as ever. Both actors created a light and playful mood in the movie that many people ache for, especially to escape reality for a couple of hours. The chemistry between the characters was easy and never seemed forced. Again, the actors made the characters seem unapologetically real. This is also great praise for the screenwriting. The characters are flawed and I love and hate it. Both characters are extremely selfish and you find yourself clenching your fists in frustration when you see how easily things could be for the two if they simply talked and communicated more, but it is good conflict for the plot.

(Photo credit to variety.com)

Now for the not so amazing parts. As lovely as this movie is, the plot is nothing special, cliche even. It is a classic boy meets girl story that started out as hatred and ended in love. While the two characters certainly had chemistry, I wish we would have gotten to see even more of the two and how their relationship developed. We got to see the beginning and the end of their relationship, but most of the middle was covered by montages. The romance was cute and real, but we only got to see one bad aspect of it and how they never really worked around it. SPOILER ALERT Despite being a romantic myself, I liked how the movie ended. That was not cliche. The couple that was the focus of the whole movie ultimately did not end up together. A part of Sebastian and Mia will always love each other, but they both moved on and did achieve their dreams. The montage of what could have been at the end was bittersweet. I grew to love both of the characters and I loved them being together, but they turned out to be happy, even without each other. END OF SPOILERS Overall, this film provides a whimsical escape through great music and a sweet love story, but there’s not much beneath the surface of that. I give this movie a solid 8/10 stars because it is praiseworthy, but it didn’t have me leaving the theater completely changed or anything like that. La La Land is currently playing in Mammoth and is coming soon to the Bishop Twin Theater so I encourage everyone to go out and see it. If you have already seen La La Land, let me know in the comments down below what your thoughts are.