LL
Movies
La La Land
Damien Chazelle · 2016
A love letter to the people who don't quite get what they want, beautifully.
Chazelle threads the needle between earnestness and self-awareness. The opening highway number is a manifesto: this movie believes in spectacle, and it dares you to believe in it too.
What I keep coming back to is the epilogue. The "what could have been" sequence is the rare cinematic gesture that lands the harder because it didn't happen. The whole film earns it.
Worth re-watching for the Justin Hurwitz score alone. City of Stars lives rent-free.