Six Reasons Why You’ll Quite Like ‘La La Land’

It’s the most talked-about film of the summer already having scooped an AACTA and Golden Globe awards, a runaway hit that surprised and appealed to even the most serious of Hollywood insiders – and yet its the cutest thing we’ve seen on celluloid since, well, forever. Here’s six reasons why you’ll love La La Land.

01. It’s a musical and a romance and a quasi-drama and a comedy all rolled into one. Now that’s what we call clever genre-splicing.

02. It’s set in a Los Angeles we can all relate to. If you’ve been a tourist to the city, you’ll recognise all the obvious landmarks. And even if you haven’t been there, it’s the LA that’s the sum of all the film and TV you’ve seen about the place but better, albeit in La La Land LA is accessible, enjoyable, heck, maybe even liveable.

03. It stars Ryan Gosling as a struggling serious jazz musician who starts off in dingy bars then gets desperate and has to play in an Eighties cover band – so the soundtrack is packed with everything from brilliant jazz to haven’t-heard-in-ages electronic ditties, broadening the film’s (music) fan-base.

04. It also stars Emma Stone whose Mia carries a nice balance of girlishness and gusto, and we like that in our modern-day female characters.

05. It’s nostalgic and contemporary all at once. Actually, sometimes you’re watching a scene and forget the movie is set in modern times and then a character’s mobile phone will ring to jolt you into the here and now.

06. Ryan Gosling. Full stop already.  Lisa Andrews

‘La La Land’ is in cinemas now.