Whistling in on a plaintive melody is La La Land, a musical so out of left field that it needs a gentle introduction for you to acclimate to. And so LA wipes in, Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling make their entrances, and it’s not until the trailer is over that you realize how far you’ve gone.
Sure, it’s just a teaser, but it’s transportive in a way that cuts through the cliché of that word. I was in an entirely different mood when the trailer for La La Land faded out, and it’s one that, thankfully, hasn’t been easy to shake off.
Damien Chazelle is responsible for this oddball, which sees the writer and director entwining his cinematic world yet again with jazz music. His biggest success to date, Whiplash, was about an obsessive jazz drummer and teacher, while his debut, Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench, revolved around a jazz trumpeter. Gosling gets the musician role in La La Land, but it looks like he’ll be struggling to get the girl, too.
Chazelle has spoken about how his jazz fascination stems from being in a competitive band in school, and while that influence still shines through, his broader life experiences complicate his films. Whiplash dripped with the blood and sweat of artistic ambition, while La La Land seems to be playing quite literally with the idea of Los Angles as the city of dreams.
The funny thing about dreams is that they aren’t static, and many of life’s hardest crossroads involve deciding which to fight for and which to let slip away. Until La La Land comes out, I guess we’ll have to stay at that wistful crossroad its trailer evokes.
La La Land is directed by Damien Chazelle and stars Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling. It will be released in the U.S. on December 2nd, 2016 and in the U.K. on January 13th, 2017. For international release dates, click here.
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