SPEC D: Damien Chazelle. U.S. Sep 12, 6:15 pm, Princess of Wales Sep 13, 11:30 am, Elgin Sep 16, 9:30 pm, TIFF Bell Lightbox 2. Rating: NNNNN
If La La Land doesn’t win the People’s Choice Award, I will be stunned. Writer/director Chazelle’s wildly ambitious musical – which pairs Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as Hollywood dreamers who’d be perfect for each other if it weren’t for their wildly divergent interests and career paths – is a swooning, glorious tribute to the risky pursuits of fame, art and love, not necessarily in that order.
Chazelle borrows the structure of a 50s MGM musical, but infuses it with a nervous energy that’s utterly contemporary. And his stars are perfection in roles that seem tailored to their specific personalities: Gosling gets to be charismatic and weird and graceful (and plays the piano sarcastically), and Stone is sharp-edged, radiant and even more graceful. Their first tap-dance number is a sheer delight, establishing a playful sophistication that carries through the whole picture.
I didn’t buy into the overheated bollocks of Whiplash, but Chazelle finds a much more convincing frame for his art-is-all story this time: musicals are movies where people burst into song because their emotions can’t be expressed through speech. La La Land gives its characters so many reasons to sing.