Movies are meant to drive feelings of joy, sadness, and all in between from the watcher. Viewing life in a more entertaining and expressive way helps people through their daily struggles. The critic-acclaimed film La La Land shows these points beautifully. It shares the growing relationship between a struggling female actress and a male pianist. The story follows the start of their relationship, facing their struggles, and working to balance each other’s dreams and goals, enhanced with the use of both music and film work to help express the emotions in the film.
La La Land is built upon the trope of right person, wrong time. This film presents common feelings of the modern world, such as struggling to find a balance of work and happiness and finding the right person to spend your life with. As this is a film, these points are shared with a more artistic and beautiful outlook. Today, many struggle to balance both work and home life, which may cause one or both to fall behind. La La Land shows how you may find the right person but other factors may cause the relationship not to last. This is a very realistic outlook on relationships for a movie as many films sugarcoat the struggles seen today in modern films. Most movies struggle with facing commonly felt feelings in a realistic manner. La La Land shows how what might be the most entertaining or romantic relationship may not be for the best in the end.
This film consists of beautiful, moving music that expresses emotion primarily through the use of piano. The use of piano throughout the film is a rather notable expression of the character’s feelings and thoughts. Music pulls the watcher into the film, which grows a connection to the characters. By scenes being accompanied by a dramatic or sorrowful soundtrack the watch can begin to feel immersed in the scene, and in a sense feel what the characters are feeling. The film also consists of breathtaking camera work. Throughout the film, the use of color, angles, and expressive scenes immerse the watcher into the struggle of finding yourself and balancing struggles in your life. Color is a very important symbol in the film as many are used consistently. Mia, the main female protagonist, is first seen wearing bright, vibrant colors. This wildly contrasts Sebastian, the male protagonist, as he is seen in neutral browns and greys. As their relationship forms, both of their worlds begin to express a more colorful outlook, such as what finding love feels like.
Something La La Land struggles with is its beginning. The film starts with relatively slow storytelling, which in retrospect, is used to lay out the groundwork of the relationship and story. One must understand how important this foundation is to a moving movie, but the beginning is what draws a person in and keeps them watching. As a person watches a movie, the most important and impactful part is at the beginning as this is where a person will choose to either keep watch or change the channel. This is why some may be deterred from watching La La Land based on what they hear from others. All personal thoughts must be taken with a grain of salt, even my own, and this is why a person needs to make their own judgments on issues, such as choosing a movie.
I would like to recommend this movie to any musical lover or someone who enjoys romantic films. This is a more realistic film so there is not much drama or suspense. The beginning starts off slow but the film begins to pick up speed towards the middle and mostly the end. I found the interactions of the main characters to be heartwarming leading to me wanting more. Do not go in expecting the most satisfying of ends, happy watching!
