La La Land (2016) is a musical that poses the big question: Can love and ambition coexist, or do some dreams only exist in our minds? We follow Sebastian “Seb” Wilder (Ryan Gosling), a jazz pianist devoted to the classics, and Mia Dolan (Emma Stone), an aspiring actress stuck juggling auditions and coffee-shop shifts. Both are convinced they’re unrecognized gems, and when they find each other, it feels like all is right in the world. But life in Los Angeles has a way of testing even the brightest sparks and between paychecks, auditions, and personal ambition, their romance is as complicated as it is enchanting.
One of the first things the viewer notices about La La Land is just how vibrant it is. The city itself feels alive and bursting with color, from the neon glow of downtown to the sun-soaked hills. At times, it almost overwhelms the viewer, perfectly capturing the dizzying pace of the “high life.” The filmmakers experiment with contrasts, mixing bright and muted tones to mirror the tug-of-war between dreams and reality, and giving the city an energy that feels both magical and slightly exhausting.
At its core, this is a story about two dreamers navigating life, love, and the costs of chasing their ambitions. It asks the familiar yet always poignant question: “I’ve got what I wanted, but at what cost?” Some viewers are divided by the way the film employs this question — choice elements of the story don’t wrap up in the neat, fairy-tale way some might hope — but that divisiveness is part of the point. La La Land lives in that “what-if” space, reflecting the tension between our fantasies and the messy, unpredictable paths life actually takes.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone bring the contrast between our leads’ philosophies to entertaining light. Gosling nails Seb’s aloof, tortured artist vibe, conveying his frustration with modernity and the compromises he faces. Stone captures Mia’s starry-eyed optimism, her charm and vulnerability making her pursuit of stardom feel real. Together, their chemistry is undeniable, and even in song, their characters’ personalities shine through: Seb’s music has a sharp, almost jab-like precision, while Mia’s voice holds high notes better, reflecting that she’s the more naive of the two. Even listening to their performances without the visuals on Spotify, one can picture the type of expressions these characters would give each other.
Speaking of music, the soundtrack doesn’t reinvent the wheel — but it doesn’t need to. It’s simply fun. The motifs are easy to follow, which makes the musical storytelling transparent and accessible, especially for anyone new to musicals. Yet there’s still enough depth to reward those paying attention to how the score mirrors the characters’ journeys.
For the era, La La Land deserves the awards it garnered for what it did for the musical film genre. Musical films were in a general decline, but 2016 saw a revitalization of the medium, due in no small part to La La Land‘s ability to be a musical anyone can enjoy. The tricky part about musicals is that they can only be fully comprehended by reading between the musical staff lines, which can get pretty exhausting. La La Land circumvents it by dropping tasteful musical hints, such as piano licks popping up at key moments, letting viewers cash out on that feeling of reading between the lines that only critics could have had before.
La La Land excels in making every element feel alive, from the characters to the city itself. There’s an organic, impulsive energy present that makes the story of Seb, Mia, and their dreams feel relatable, poignant, and thought-provoking. It calls into question the resignation that we feel in our lives, and sparks animated discussion even years after its release how we should pursue our own “La La Lands,” if we ought to at all. It’s a movie about love, ambition, and the “what could have been” moments that linger long after the credits roll.