Between its record-tying Oscar nominations and its high ratings across the main review sites, you might think this the best movie not just of the year but of the decade to date. I went in with no such assumption. One family member had had high expectations and was disappointed; another had low expectations and was impressed. It seemed only fair that my expectations be middling.
I had heard that it pays tribute to old-school musicals but is not like Glee. Nor, it turns out, is it to musicals what The Artist is to silents. It follows two present-day people who love different aspects of the past: Mia (Emma Stone), a barista who wants to be an actress and covers her room with classic film posters; and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a pianist/keyboardist with little interest in things outside of jazz, which can make it difficult for him to stay employed. As circumstances repeatedly bring them together, they fall in love, but the relationship has an awfully shaky foundation, tested by the dilemmas of whether to follow their dreams or settle....
I'll give the film credit for being distinctive -- which is not the same as creative. The plot is quite simple, maybe even slow and hackneyed, yet the presentation defies comparison to other works I know. Cheesy musical sequences get incorporated into an otherwise fairly realistic story, as if to say, "How idyllic, right? Wrong!" In that sense, it's almost like a less severe Dancer in the Dark. And it doesn't end the way I was led to predict, which might just increase its value in teaching a lesson.
I'll also give it credit for being pretty different from what I know of Damien Chazelle's one other hit, Whiplash. Sure, there's still a focus on jazz and the question of choosing between passions, but it's too gentle and lighthearted to get into abusive territory. J.K. Simmons even amusingly turns up as a boss who hates jazz.
Alas, it didn't leave me wanting more. Or perhaps I should say that it left me wanting more while I watched, not after. Apart from the over-the-top opening number, it tends to do things by half-measures. It's never especially funny, sad, or glorious. There are only a few songs, none of which do much for me. The real and unreal elements don't throw each other into stark relief; they just feel a little awkward together and make it hard to judge the acting quality. And I really hope it doesn't win the award for cinematography, because for all the pleasantly bright outfits as if to show off new Technicolor, I kept thinking, "Was that the best way you could come up with to fill the screen?"
Part of my problem might lie in Gosling. Lars and the Real Girl is his only work that I've strongly enjoyed to date. Drive, Half Nelson, The Ides of March, The Notebook, and, yes, The Big Short have all struck me as OK at best. It took me forever just to remember which actor he was. Even knowing that he actually plays the keyboard real well does only so much to make me enjoy watching him. If you don't have that hangup, maybe it won't affect your viewing of LLL.
I don't regret watching this in the theater, even if nobody there laughed or applauded. But if LLL wins, it'll be my least favorite Academy Best Picture in more than a decade. Right now I'm rooting for one of the racial entries to beat it.
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