From La La Land, photo courtesy Summit Entertainment
La La Land: Count me among the critics who kinda love this old-fashioned, self-aware and surprisingly subversive musical. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling are charming as Mia and Sebastian, two Hollywood dreamers who (of course) fall in love despite their best intentions not to. But even as they find each other, their other loves and dreams—she of being a famous actress, he of playing classic jazz—slowly get in the way. La La Land is a subversive love letter to Hollywood old and new, and as such it charmed my socks off. I’m a sucker for musicals, and this made me want to watch Singin’ in the Rain all over again. But there’s more going on here than toe-tapping tunes. In its bittersweet second act, it reminds us that we can’t, really, have it all. We must make choices and live with them. Even as La La Land made me smile from ear to ear, it made me think a little, too.
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