Before watching the movie, La La Land seemed like another romantic movie of bright colors, beautiful music, and two people falling in love in Los Angeles. But underneath its joyful exterior, Damien Chazelle crafts a devastating story. It is not a story about how love takes over. It is a story of the cost of love when dreams and ambition come first. Can a person both follow their dreams and the person they love?
The film’s opening song, “Another Day of Sun,” expertly sets up the film’s central theme upfront. Stuck in traffic on a freeway in the blazing sun, strangers come together in song about ambition and the future of possibility. As the song goes on, more people and small bands join in — both an exhilarating and exciting number to watch. But at the same time, it is also ironic that they are trapped in the traffic and motionless. From the beginning of the film, Damien Chazelle shows that Hollywood is where people with big dreams and hope coexist as they wait for their big break.
Mia and Sebastian meet at a time when they are both passionately chasing their dreams. Mia wants to become an actress, and Sebastian hopes to open his own jazz club. Despite going to countless auditions, Mia is unable to book a role. Casting directors barely look up when she recites her lines and often cut her off after only a word or two. The cruelty of the film industry is aptly portrayed through Mia’s interactions with these casting directors.
Meanwhile, Sebastian has dreams of saving “real jazz,” even as the world around him pressures him to let it go. His ambition makes him both admirable and stubborn in Mia’s eyes. Both characters strive for success, but struggle to survive in La La Land as it continues to demand compromise.
Throughout their relationship, music becomes the language of their lives. At the start of their relationship, their songs are jovial, flirtatious, and light. But as their relationship deepens and their careers slowly advance, the music disappears. Melodies, songs, and dances are replaced by long, uncomfortable conversations and arguments. Their fantastical relationship gives way to a realistic one. Chazelle uses this shift to show how, as a relationship matures, the dreamlike times during the beginning get silenced.
Their relationship starts to crack when Sebastian joins Keith’s band. Although the band quickly becomes successful, it goes against everything Sebastian stands for. The music the band plays is not true jazz but mixed with electronic elements. Mia feels betrayed by Sebastian because he sold out on his big dream, and she believes she has lost the person she fell in love with. This results in a big, painful argument over dinner because neither feels they are wrong. Sebastian needs stability while Mia wants him to stick to his dreams. They don’t become enemies but simply grow in different ways.
After their argument, Mia leaves Los Angeles feeling defeated. While back home, Mia gets a call from a casting director for a role, but she’s reluctant to audition. Nonetheless, she goes, and her audition monologue, “Fools Who Dream,” becomes the emotional core of the film. She sings about her aunt, who lived for the arts but was never successful. Her song is not just about acting but daring to follow one’s dreams despite the suffering it may bring. It becomes a confession of fear and hope that the room finally listens.
When Mia and Sebstain lock eyes years later, a montage plays of a different reality where they did stay together — an imagined life that could have been. Their smiles acknowledge both loss and gratitude. They did love each other. It simply was the wrong time. Unlike traditional musicals and romantic films, La La Land refuses a perfect ending. There is no reunion, no relighting of their spark. As my friend Thomas would say, this movie deserves a spot on the Halloween edition of The Stute.
