The old-fashioned Hollywood Romance, with singing and dancing and all that, has been long in abeyance. Attempts in the seventies and early eighties to give it a comeback by Martin Scorcese and Francis Ford Coppola were signature flops ("New York New York" and "One from the Heart" respectively). So how is it that Damien Chazelle is able to capture it so well?
Well, it turns out it's the chemistry, stupid. Robert DeNiro and Frederick Forrest are both highly skilled actors, but romantic chemistry is not in their wheelhouse. But it is definitely in Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone's. Chazelle bets a lot on that chemistry - they are basically the only two characters in the film, and if that doesn't work, the entire film disappears down the drain - but it pays off well. You want to see these two people together and you enjoy it when they are.
Of the other elements - the songs themselves are no more than middling, and the plot itself is mostly something that exists to give the characters things to do rather than something particularly driving. But this is such a gorgous film to look at (lush retro cinematography and the not-inconsiderable-charms of the two leads) that it barely matters. It's a bit of a lopsided love-letter to LA, the city that both offers dreams and denies them simultaneously, where this kind of simple fantasy can come alive under the ever-present sun.
This is a very comfy film to go into awards season with - its major intent is to entertain rather than to deeply plow into the human condition - but none the worse for that.
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