Early La La Land reviews suggest Oscars may beckon: 'A movie worth savouring'

The acting, cinematography, lighting, set design, score...almost every department is being praised

Whiplash writer/director Damien Chazelle’s new film La La Land premiered at Venice Film Festival last night, and the first few reviews have started to trickle in.

There’s been huge excitement for the movie given the popularity of both Oscar winner Whiplash and Chazelle’s new leads, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone.

Centring on an aspiring jazz pianist Sebastian (Gosling) who falls for a struggling actress Mia (Stone), La La Land’s trailers and posters have been nothing short of breathtaking, with a bold and luscious aesthetic.

Judging by these early reviews, the film seems destined to ensnare a few Oscars this year, if not the big one. After all, Hollywood loves a film about Hollywood…

The Independent (Geoffrey Macnab)

"Damien Chazelle’s La La Land is a wildly ambitious widescreen musical drama that, at its best, hits some very high notes indeed. It features exceptional performances from its two leads. The downside is that the film is uneven and has its moments of extreme kitsch and bathos."

The Guardian (Peter Bradshaw)

"La La Land is such a happy, sweet-natured movie – something to give you a Vitamin D boost of sunshine."

Deadline (Pete Hammond)

“Whether it is a dazzling song and dance opening set in a massive traffic jam on an L.A. freeway, or a spectacular sequence with Gosling and Stone flying high into the skies of the Griffith Observatory the musical numbers soar with their own vibrancy and urgency. We live in hard times but this is a movie worth savoring, something that entertains, enlightens and makes us feel good about being alive. It is not to be missed by anyone who still cares for the future of the American musical.”

Variety (Owen Gleiberman)

“La La Land isn’t a masterpiece (and on some level it wants to be). Yet it’s an exciting ramble of a movie, ardent and full of feeling, passionate but also exquisitely — at times overly — controlled. It winds up swimming in melancholy, yet its most convincing pleasures are the moments when it lifts the audience into a state of old-movie exaltation, leading us to think, 'What a glorious feeling. I’m happy again.'”

The Hollywood Reporter (Todd McCarthy)

“All the same, for Chazelle to be able to pull this off the way he has is something close to remarkable. The director's feel for a classic but, for all intents and purposes, discarded genre format is instinctive and intense; he really knows how to stage and frame dance and lyrical movement, to transition smoothly from conventional to musical scenes, to turn naturalistic settings into alluring fantasy backdrops for set pieces, and to breathe new life into what many would consider cobwebbed cliches.”

The Wrap (Alonso Duhalde)

“Fans of musicals will adore this sparkling cinematic love letter, and if others are slow to embrace it, Chazelle’s screenplay sees them coming. 'You don’t think it’s too nostalgic?' asks Mia, regarding her play. 'That’s the point!' responds Sebastian. Mia: 'And if people don’t like it?' Sebastian: 'F–k ‘em!'”

IndieWire (Eric Kohn)

“At its best, La La Land probes the irony of its existence, celebrating the greatness of a bygone era in the context of changing times. 'That’s LA,' Sebastian concludes. 'They worship everything and they value nothing.' But that doesn’t stop him from getting fired up about the underlying power of classic jazz. 'You can’t hear it,' he implores Mia. 'You have to see it.' To that end, La La Land succeeds in making its sweet imagery sing, particularly with the sensational finale. In a wordless explosion of lights and shadows, Chazelle reignites the movie with fresh context that forces it to get real. Here, he arrives at the wrenching conclusion that even the most vibrant fantasy eventually must fade to black.”

Screen International (Fionnuala Halligan)

“La La Land is classic escapism from the dream factory, shot on the Warner Bros lot in anamorphic Cinemascope in 35mil (in an unusual 2.52:1 ratio)…[not] without its issues, Chazelle’s dream-like follow-up to Whiplash is as la-la-light as its title, tap-dancing its way into the hearts of incurable romantics everywhere.”