La La Land (2017)

La La Land is an upcoming romantic musical comedy-drama due to be released in the UK mid January next year. I haven’t really heard an awful lot about the film and ended up finding out about it after scrolling through IMDB. From what I’ve read about it the basic story follows a young female called Mia who dreams of being a star on the screen, while in reality serves coffee to other actresses. Meeting an aspiring jazz musician playing in a dingy bar, the two fall in love and together achieve their successes. However, as is always the case with big dreams, obsession is soon to follow.

Starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, the trailer for La La Land looks promising. I’m not a massive fan of either actor but knowing of Gosling’s musical background and hearing his dulcet tones over the top of this sneak peak fills me with hope. The film reeks of the Hollywood dream and the magic of the old style film studios. If anything, when watching the trailer for this film I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between it and Singing’ in the Rain with the filmmaking setting casting a more romantic sheet over the love story. The trailer even depicts dream like musical sequences, similar to those created in ‘You Were Made for Me’.

I could be completely wrong in drawing those comparisons, only really having a basic synopsis and a short trailer to go off but if you know me at all, you’ll know I absolutely adore the films of the classical Hollywood cinema era and as much as I enjoy contemporary Hollywood, there’s nothing quite like the old films. If La La Land is anything like what I’m hoping it is it will be a firm favourite.

The film has already premiered at the Venice Film Festival and was nominated for two awards there, Emma Stone taking away one for Best Actress. It’s also picked up two other awards; one from the Toronto Film Festival (People’s Choice Award) and the other at the Hollywood Film Awards (Cinematographer of the Year). It looks promising at the moment and I’m really looking forward to hearing more about it as to whether it’s a film I’d go and see. I’m a lover of musicals and a lover of classical Hollywood, it’s got my hopes up.