La La Land
★★★★
It's a rarity that I lower my rating for a film that I originally gave five stars. When I saw La La Land in the theaters, I was blown away. I can see how my experience watching it on Netflix this time pales in comparison to that theatric experience with the large screen and amazing sound surround. I thought that my teenage daughter should see it, and I was thrilled that she liked it because I'm a big fan of Damien Chazelle. Even though he's not perfect, he takes big swings and certainly has a style and a cadence that he can easily call his own.
Right off the bat, when Emma Stone sings for the first time, my daughter says to me, "Why is she so pitchy?" And I just couldn't get over it for the rest of the film. Then, I couldn't help but notice how Ryan Gosling isn't the best singer in the world either. Don't get me wrong, they are both very good singers. Way better than I ever could be. But the story of this movie needs them to be great, and they aren't. I love Stone and Gosling's chemistry and they are both wonderful actors, but by the end, I'm not sure I believed that their characters ended up in the spots where life took them.
That's an extremely big flaw that I didn't quite feel the first time around, because I still love the music, lyrics, choreography, camera movement and editing of this film. I especially love how the story dares to tell a romantic story about two creative people who help the other one achieve greatness, though their relationship doesn't aspire to similar heights. At the time, I couldn't believe La La Land didn't win Best Picture, but now I feel like I should watch Moonlight again. I don't think I would be surprised to find that the Academy got it right.
