You have two choices if you go and see the film La La Land.
You can go with the attitude: “It’s received so much hype and so many awards, it can’t possibly live up to expectations; it feeds into Hollywood’s self-obsessions; there are much more worthy films out there.”
Or you can do what I did: Go with it; suspend all cynicism at the door; give yourself over to a ridiculous riot of romantic, old-school musical nonsense.
If you do the latter, believe me – you will thank yourself. You will come out of the cinema yearning for a time when yearning was a thing and people could break into a song and dance routine at the drop of a hat.
It is joyous and old-fashioned and I make no apologies for being grateful for a film that had no baddies, no violence and not even any swearing (that I noticed anyway).
Heaven knows, I am a cynic of great repute but I totally bought into the gentle will-they-won’t-they? romance of the storyline.
I have to include a caveat here: please don’t try and persuade anyone who hates musicals to accompany you to this film.
I was aware from the beginning of the movie that it would be Mr P’s worse nightmare.
As my regular reader knows, he has a strict checklist for films he is willing to sit through. Ideally, they should have at least one car chase, aliens or space travel, no kissing and – crucially – absolutely no singing or dancing. Phew – he dodged a bullet there.
The only sour note of the film for me came courtesy of Ryan Gosling’s piano playing, having heard that he’d taught himself to play, from scratch, in four months flat.
Four months? Do you know how long I’ve been sticking at it? My middle-aged crisis learning of the piano is still proving a challenge.