Beginning and ending with thoroughly complex musical numbers and strikingly beautiful colors, Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone twirl through the screen in Oscar-winning Damien Chazelle’s hit movie, “La La Land” which received a whopping collection of 33 major nominations and grossed a total of 449.3 million dollars, challenging “Titanic” and “All About Eve” for the most Oscar-nominated film in the award ceremony’s history.

The plot follows Mia (Emma Stone), a struggling actress, and Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a jazz pianist, as they are drawn to one another by being extremely passionate about their interests. When the couple finally believes everything is right within the universe, they are faced with making one of the hardest decisions of all: choosing between true love or their dream careers.

Mary Zophres, the costume designer for Interstellar, was asked by Chazelle to design the clothing for this musical. She had a big challenge, which was how to straddle a color pallet and costume genre for this coming of age tale, as Chazelle wanted it to also have a very 50’s/60’s feel to it. Zophres decided to go for very bright and saturated colors on modern clothing designs against a dark set, and it mixed perfectly. It also impressed the mass public as “La La Land” was nominated for the 2017 Oscar for best costume design.

The vast majority of critics had a lot to say about the ending as well, and how they thought it was lazy and left too many threads loose. But, nonetheless, Chazelle and his crew defended the bittersweet ending until the very end. It was best put by producer Fred Berger, when he told a reporter that “[Fellow producer] Jordan [Horowitz], Damien [Chazelle] and myself made a pact that under no circumstances will Mia and Sebastian end up together in the end,” says Berger. “He will always play jazz and not a more acceptable form of music; she will always be an actress, this will always be a love letter to L.A. — we’re not relocating to Paris.”

Overall, the mass public fell in love with the production of this movie, the music, the choreography, and especially the characters. It is a very charming film that, that was meant to fill young talents with hope and inspiration to chase after their dreams despite the obstacles, which inclines me to give it a four-star rating. Chazelle’s dazzling movie, “La La Land”, is available for rent on Amazon video for $3.99, and available for Blu-Ray and DVD for $5 – $7.50.