To Own on DVD: La La Land

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Movie Selection: La La Land

La La Land uses its musical genre, cinematography, and story to expertly revitalize film. The soundtrack is replayable beyond the end credits as seen in social media platforms like TikTok while supporting its story. The colors of the movie pop off the screen while symbolizing the character’s journey through the story.

This only makes the audience wonder “How come every movie isn’t like this?”

Fastplay

The movie starts off with a musical sequence on the highways of the Las Angeles. This transitions to introduce Sebastian repeating 20 seconds of a song, and Mia rehearsing for an upcoming audition.

At her audition, Mia is ignored by the casting directors and is among other young women competing for a role.

Back at her apartment, Mia’s roommates all encourage her to attend a party, which she obliges. Singing about her She roams around the party as actors and talent scouts intermingle

The perspective transitions to Sebastian, whose sister interrogates him for missing bills and not recovering from a shady deal. The only furniture in his room is a piano and a dining table with a stool from a famous jazz musician.

Reeling from his sister’s interrogation, Sebastian goes to work as a pianist during Christmas, so he argues against playing Christmas music. As a form of protest, Sebastian plays jazz in the restaurant. This gets him fired.

Mia tries to compliment his jazz as Sebastian storms out, and she’s left taken aback.

After more failed auditions, Mia attends a pool party where she meets Sebastian again as he plays a low-brow 1970’s act. They leave together and flirt with each other as they resolve their tension after their first meet up, which gets interrupted by a call from Mia’s boyfriend Greg.

Later during Mia’s barista shift, she meets with Sebastian again to walk through the Warner Brother’s studio lot. After she says she hates jazz, Sebastian takes Mia to a jazz club where Mia reveals her dream of being an actress and Sebastian’s dream of owning a traditional jazz club.

Mia then gets a callback that she figures out is just a formality as she is dismissed after half a line. Defeated, Mia goes to a dinner with Greg, disassociates into Sebastian’s jazz playing, and goes on a movie date with him.

They go to the Griffith Observatory as they watched in Rebel Without a Cause and transition in a dance inside the planetarium.

Inspired by Sebastian, Mia starts writing a one-woman play as the two start their romantic relationship by going on dates to jazz clubs, introducing each other to their friends, and supporting each other’s musical and theatrical aspirations.

Sebastian runs into Keith, a former classmate. He offers Sebastian a job as the pianist in his contemporary jazz band. Sebastian, at first, denies the opportunity, but later he accepts the money to put towards saving up to buy a space for his jazz club.

Mia and Sebastian move in together as Mia quits her job to focus on her one-woman play and Sebastian performs as the pianist for Keith’s jazz band. The latter bothers Mia as the musical act is more produced and rehearsed than the jazz Sebastian prefers.

Sebastian sets up a dinner date with Mia before leaving for a tour where she accuses him of abandoning his dreams to host a jazz club. Sebastian accuses Mia of only being together out of joy and pity over his lack of success.

During Mia’s one-woman play, Sebastian remembers and attends a photo shoot for the band’s advertisement. Few people attend Mia’s one-woman play yet still downplay her artistic efforts, so Mia abandons Sebastian to return to her home town of Boulder Town, Nevada.

As the two are separate, a casting director who attended Mia’s play calls Sebastian about offering Mia an audition. At the audition, Mia is supposed to tell a story, so she tells the story of her aunt living in Paris and jumping into Le Seine.

As Mia waits for the results of the auditions, she and Sebastian end their relationship as Sebastian goes on tour and Mia leaves to film in Paris.

Years pass in the story where Mia is now a movie star, and Sebastian is the owner of his jazz club called Seb’s. With her daughter at home with a baby sitter, Mia and her husband walk around Los Angeles where they come across Seb’s where he plays a song on the piano.

Mia and Sebastian’s story restarts with a tender kiss instead of a shove and retells the events of the story: Sebastian denies Keith’s job offering, Mia’s one-woman play is a success, and Mia still lands the movie role as Sebastian follows her. The two marry to start a family with a young daughter in a smaller apartment. With her daughter at home with a baby sitter, Mia and her husband walk around Los Angeles where they come across a jazz bar.

The sequence ends with Sebastian on stage and Mia leaving Seb’s Jazz Club as the two lock eyes and continue their life paths.

Special Features

One of the major sticking points of the movie is the opening sequence: the choreography is lively and involves the camera to join the dancers in an up-close perspective. The song itself serves to set the tone of the movie of absolute optimism in the middle of limbo, which is the highway traffic in Los Angeles. The lyrics also foreshadow the love story and fallout between Mia and Sebastian: “'Cause maybe in that sleepy town; He'll sit one day, the lights are down; He'll see my face and think of how he used to know me.”

A major low point of the movie’s structure is the song “City of Stars”. Sebastian is on a boardwalk where he dances with an older woman and wonders about his dreams ever coming to fruition. The movie stops its otherwise perfect pacing for a number that does not match the movie’s theatrical tone nor develop its characters in a meaningful way.

The movie also uses colors to emotionally impact the audience. Mia’s dress and Sebastian’s suit when they meet is a strong cobalt blue: the most prominent color in the movie’s last story setting, Seb’s, calling back their failed meet cute with a tender and silent goodbye.

Ending Credits

La La Land’s artist-on-artist relationship demonstrates how the best relationships need to conclude for the better. Mia and Sebastian are able to move past their honeymoon phase to develop themselves artistically and professionally and complete their dreams at the cost of their relationship.

A masterpiece of filmmaking, La La Land invites audiences to join in on a magical journey with a less than ideal yet undoubtedly needed ending: an escape from La La land to the real world.

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