Classic Film Review #22: La La Land

Available on Amazon Prime

Almost seven years on from its original release, Damien Chazelle's remarkable film continues to provide viewers with the sort of escapist pleasures that cinema was designed to provide.

The director’s decision to make the all singing, all dancing La La Land the successor to the intense Whiplash initially appears to be a curious one, but his oeuvre has always been characterised by an unspoken desire to illuminate the long-standing relationship between music and the silver screen, and both films do that in spades (albeit in very different ways).

Like Whiplash, this film is turbo-charged by the dynamic between its two leads, with Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling both delivering knock-out performances as star-crossed lovers that are brought together, and eventually separated, by their unquenching desire to live out their dreams.

Also sharing top billing is composer Justin Hurwitz, who forged a burgeoning career as one of cinema’s foremost music men with this outstanding original score, the perfect accompaniment to the film’s endearing narrative. Linus Sandgren's cinematography is also impressive, steeping the film in the time-honoured mythos of Los Angeles by framing the city in a gorgeously varied palette of colours, while Mary Zophres' fabulous work as costume designer also subtly ties La La Land in with some of the Hollywood classics of yesteryear.

A rousing watch from beginning to last, this is a wonderful doff of the hat to cinematic history that manages to feel nostalgic and contemporary all at once.