Oh La La Land...I think you may have been grown in a lab just for me! A modern updating of classic Hollywood musicals? Directed by Damien Chazelle? Sign me up! And yes, the film is quite good. I love how it tempers the unflinching optimism of 40s and 50s musicals with millennial concerns about employment, success, and failure. I love how the film didn't cheat with its ending; it was brave enough to not surrender to contrived sappiness. But here's the thing: it's not perfect. While Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone have great chemistry, I didn't like their singing or dancing. I've heard some critics say that Chazelle deliberately made their singing and dancing sub-par so it would highlight their awkwardness. You know what movie didn't have to rely on sub-par singing and dancing to do the same thing? Mark Sandrich's Top Hat (1935). Go watch the Isn't This a Lovely Day (to be Caught in the Rain) to see what I mean. Also...and I hate to say this...some of the music just isn't very good. The first two numbers in particular were outright forgettable, although the first is saved by some truly astonishing choreography.
8/10
No comments:
Post a Comment