Damien Chazelle's jazzy, snazzy, and starry-eyed musical is truly a labor of love that resembles something straight out of the Golden Age of Hollywood, one that'll evoke feelings of nostalgia for true fans. Sebastian, a struggling jazz pianist, and Mia, a barista and aspiring actress, are each preoccupied with their own ambitions, but the stars align so to speak when they meet and a mutual attraction sparks. Frenetic, episodic, glitzy, glamorous and dreamy, this isn't just a musical but also a very personal story of fate, chance, love, and the pursuit of one's hopes and dreams with fantastical dance choreography and mesmerizing scenery. Stone and Gosling are so perfectly in sync, singing and dancing with such pizazz and generating such fevered excitement you'd think they'd been playing these characters for years. ***
Review of La La Land
