The CHIEF February 2025

Movie Review

By Tyler Drechsel

La La Land

La La Land focuses on two characters both wanting to make something more for themselves. Sebastian, a pianist who’s forced to waste his talents performing basic background music for restaurants, and Mia, an aspiring actress who can’t get any roles. The two initially resent each other after a few sour interactions, but after sharing a musical number and a walk around Hollywood, they find that they have a lot in common. They begin dating each other, and as their relationship progresses, so do their dreams. Mia makes progress in her acting career when she writes and performs a play, and Sebastian joins a band and begins making enough money to establish a club for himself. But as the two get closer to the dream they’ve worked so hard to achieve, they’re faced with the difficult fact that they can’t have everything. And they need to decide whether or not they want to sacrifice their relationship for their dream that’s so close to becoming reality. La La Land is a unique film because of how it manages to create such a quirky and whimsical world, and simultaneously tell an emotional and impactful story to the viewer. The love story is very impactful and could have worked very well on its own, but the musical aspect is what makes the movie feel so magical. There are many moments in this film where the acting and dialogue is responsible for portraying emotion, but the majority of the emotion is portrayed through absolutely gorgeous musical and dance sequences. It baffles me that a movie with such an emotional and mature story can fit into such a quirky and magical world, but it does. The glorified artistic style, beautiful colors, music, choreography, mix of classic and modern film style gives this film such a magical feeling. It then combines that with a mature and emotional love story, creating something unlike any movie I’ve ever seen before. It’s like a phenomenal story that takes place in the most insane dream ever. It doesn’t seem real, and it’s something that needs to be experienced to be understood. I can’t recommend it enough. 10/10.