La La Land (2016)

"City of stars, are you shining just for me?"

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Sebastian a jazz musician and Mia a wannabe actress are drawn to each other and develop a relationship but as they begin to succeed a bit in life, major decisions are thrown their way which affects their love affair which later becomes hard to maintain and threatens their future together.

I can kind of feel this is gonna do bits. To be honest when this came out I put off watching it for a long time and I honestly have no idea why because when I watched it, it instantly blew me away. When you combine my two favourite things in life in a movie which is: making movies and music, in this case a vibe of old Hollywood and jazz, it's an obvious soft spot for me. Damien Chazelle's way of integrating music into his films, because of his past as a trained musician, as he does in his previous films but times 100 in this one is just very mesmerizing. The cinematography added to the musical settings and colour grading just bounce off each other so well making it so visually stunning. (On a side note though I got serious Ingrid Bergman vibes from Emma Stone for some reason, and not just because Mia has a mural of Ingrid in her room). Adding to the musical side of Sebastian we have Mia's love for movies which is complemented by the entire Hollywood vibe of L.A and the sets around which chunks of this movie takes place. This isn't like one of those corny Hollywood rom-com dramas because it's just realistic in what it portrays romance and love to be, especially with its ending which leads us on a way of satisfaction but ties it up with the reality of what such relationships actually lead to. Also lemme just mention the original songs that this film has are absolutely beautiful.

Director: Damien Chazelle

Cast: Ryan Gosling, Emma Stone, John Legend, J.K. Simmons

Rating: 4.5/5