Opinion: La La Land is a masterpiece of cinema, but won’t become a cult classic

Note: this review contains spoilers for La La Land.

When it first hit theaters in late December 2016, newcomer Damien Chazelle’s La La Land was anything but a smash hit. With a feeble $9 million opening weekend, expectations were low going into awards season. However, the film became an instant hit with critics due to the intensity and technicality of its lighting, sound, color, and acting. After positive reviews came flooding in, its revenue increased dramatically, leaving the film with a total gross of $225 million at the end of January. In early January, the film swept the Golden Globes, taking six awards, including Best Score, Screenplay, Actor/Actress, and Director. Soon after, it was graced with the second most Oscar nominations ever, tying with 1997’s Titanic for 14 nominations.

Despite its critical reception, audience reviews are still meager. Even though the film nears technical perfection, casual moviegoers are not captivated by its storytelling, music, and revival of the classic 50’s-era musical.

Many, if not all, of La La Land’s Oscar nominations are deserved. Up for awards like Best Original Music Score, Best Original Screenplay, Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, and even Best Picture, the highest award the Oscars have to offer. The film’s music is gorgeous, melodic, and captivating, and gives true insight into the singers’ personalities and feelings. Many musical sequences drift off from reality, taking place in a surreal, dreamlike state; causing the audience to develop an association with the film’s music and surreal atmosphere. The music transitions seamlessly back into reality, pulling in just enough cityscape sound to ground the audience, and extended sequences lacking a musical number meticulously bring mundane sounds into the landscape, intensifying the events occurring around the characters.

Chazelle uses lighting so intentionally that it will likely become one of the director’s ongoing tropes. Just before each musical number, intense neon lights appear on the screen, signifying a coming song. The contrast between light and dark from scene to scene and character to character subtly deepens characters and emotions. Even the color of the lights matter, with yellow and white being warm and comforting and blue and green being stark and divisive.

The color-coordinated costuming of each character also lends itself to minute character development; each time an attitude or feeling changes, so does the color and flamboyance of the character’s costuming. The acting follows suit, allowing the audiences to relate with and understand the characters and what their lives are really like. Everything a critic would look for in the film is well-designed and perfectly executed.

And now, with the Oscars less than two weeks out, La La Land seems poised to win many of the awards it has been nominated for. And still, casual audiences do not resonate with the film the way critics do. Herein lies the movie’s problem: it is too subtly technical for the average moviegoer. The tiniest details make the entire production, and critics specifically look for the tiny details as they view a film. A couple watching the movie because it was labeled as a romance/musical on Fandango wouldn’t be.
This isn’t to say that general audiences aren’t smart enough to look for the things the film does perfectly. Audiences go to a romance musical looking for a sappy love story with two hopelessly romantic lovers who fall perfectly in love and live happily ever after. What La La Land is, though, is a clever, delicate commentary on the nature of love and ambition in modern Hollywood. The film is truly gorgeous in every aspect– if you know what you’re looking for. Otherwise, the audience will leave the theatre with a few harmonic tunes and a love story that ends with the main characters drifting apart and pursuing their own passions rather than each other. This, of course, is extremely poetic and challenges the idea of true love that was so pervasive in classic Hollywood musicals. And while the film desperately wants to be a social discussion on love and want, its message is far too subversive and esoteric for audiences not specifically trained to look for it.