Much has been made of LaLa Land’s surprising and somewhat divisive ending, a flash-forward which
shows that the lead characters, Sebastian and Mia, sacrificed their
relationship in order to follow their professional dreams. Though there is healthy
debate over whether or not the ending is so sad as to be unsatisfying, the
general consensus seems to be that it is simply bittersweet. That, although
unexpectedly melancholy, it is ultimately more genuine and fulfilling than the
standard happy ending for a Hollywood romance – acknowledging the sadness that
comes in losing a lover, but celebrating the greater personal fulfilment of
achieving one’s dreams. I don’t see it that way, but I don’t really see it the
other way either. In my opinion, the ending of La La Land is terribly sad and disappointing, but for reasons
perhaps far more unsettling than the simple dissolution of a fictional
relationship. The real tragedy for me, in La
La Land’s ending, is the very idea that so many people would consider it happy
or even bittersweet and what that means about the understandably confused
values and struggles of my generation.
La La Land is an
unashamedly American movie. More specifically, it’s an unashamedly Hollywood
movie. It wears its influences on its sleeve and with great pride. From
beginning to end, director Damien Chazelle makes it clear that his film is a
love letter to the Hollywood of both the past and present – a nostalgia-fuelled
throwback to old-school screen musicals, romantic epics and screwball comedies,
with just a little modern cynicism thrown in and the inklings of a debate as to
whether it’s better to try to hold on to things as they are or incorporate them
into something new. The many ways in which he reiterates this objective,
particularly through Sebastian’s efforts to revive “real” jazz clashing with
his band mate’s desire to bring jazz into the modern day, are heavy-handed at
best, but serve their purpose well enough. The film’s intentions and artistic
influences are very clear. What is less clear, however, but is even more vital
to the understanding of the true nature of this film, is the societal influence
that the real modern Hollywood and those who inhabit it has on it – a fleeting,
transitory existence, born from self-obsession and a compulsive drive to
“succeed”, even where success may not really exist.
While La La Land’s
intentions may be to present a melding of old and new ideals – the wonder and
fantasy of old Hollywood merged with the honest, self-aware realism of modern
Hollywood – it succeeds more as a perhaps entirely unintentional portrait of
the more binary transition from old to new ideals, and how a changing Hollywood culture has
continued to shape the expectations of Western society. In our modern, hyper-critical,
social media-driven, “everybody’s got something important to say” world,
(believe me, I’m well aware of the irony and hypocrisy of me saying that) we
love to look back at old movies and laugh at the now-seemingly frivolous,
unrealistic and sometimes outright offensive values they espouse. The neat,
“happily ever after” endings, easily distinguishable heroes and villains, idealised
romances and straightforward conflicts of a Hollywood gone by bred a generation
of people who believed that love and goodwill would conquer all, that things
would work out in the end, the good guys would always win and everyone who
deserved to would find their one true love and that would be all they’d need in
life. Much has been written, of course, about the potentially damaging nature
of these unrealistic fantasies, and the difficulty this generation experienced
as they came to realise that real life did not match up to their expectations.
We are wiser now, more self-aware. We scoff at something like the great drama
made over the idea that, if Donna Reed’s character in It’s a Wonderful Life had never met her husband, she would suffer the horrible fate of never marrying and working at the library, (gasp!) as if
her life would have no purpose without a husband and as if that is the single
biggest conflict she could ever face. We wouldn’t stand for such an insulting
implication in a modern film, and rightly so. We know better know.
But do we really? Or have the young adults of today simply
been conditioned to believe a different fantasy? One less tantalising, less
perfect and therefore, seemingly less unrealistic and more attainable, but no
less a construction of make-believe. There’s been a big stink recently about some
members of the previous generation – the “baby boomers” – criticising “millennials”
for being too entitled and expecting to be rewarded just for showing up. We are the “participation trophy” generation, they say. In my experience, it’s quite
the opposite. Most of the people I know my age are fiercely career-minded,
goal-oriented and hard-working, even when it comes to their leisure activities
and social lives, and many of them highly creative and driven to express their
ideas, even in the face of adversity. They work far too many hours for far too
little pay, living in homes that are far too small for them, travelling for far
too long, sleeping far too little, judging themselves far too much by how other
people appear (emphasis on APPEAR) to be living and setting themselves far too high
expectations. They want to be managers by 27, business owners by 32, millionaires
by 35. They want to visit every continent. They want to speak three languages. They
want to climb mountains and run marathons. They want to be ABLE to climb
mountains and run marathons. They want to say things that will be heard and
more, importantly, listened to. They want to make a difference in the world. They
want to build something. They want to know that they exist. And they want other
people to know it too.
If there’s one thing about the millennial myth that is true,
it’s that we’re a hopelessly self-obsessed generation, which is not to say that
we’re uniformly selfish, or callous, or only interested in what benefits us,
but that we desperately feel the need to prove that WE matter as individuals,
and we’re willing to work ourselves half to death and cut our ties with anything
and anyone in order to prove it. What we’ve taken from modern Hollywood culture
and the destruction of the ideals of old Hollywood is that life doesn’t just
work itself out and you can’t just depend on your relationship with others for
personal satisfaction – you need to go out and get it yourself and that takes
effort and sacrifice. That’s all true, to a point, but in this desperate quest
for “personal satisfaction” and “success”, (terms that are as utterly arbitrary
and illusory as “true love” or “happily ever after” ever were) how many of us
are giving up on things that make us truly happy to chase things we think we
should be going after? We’ve scrapped the old myth of Hollywood fairytale
endings, sure, but we’ve replaced it with the myth of Mark Zuckerberg, the self-made
kid billionaire Cinderella story that all of us can be if we just dig deep
enough, try hard enough and don’t let anything hold us back. This is the new
American dream, and we can all still chase it. We can make our own
opportunities. We can be successful. We just need to work hard, take things
seriously. We need to use our time as efficiently as possible. We have to
ignore all distractions. We don’t have time for that now. We’ll do that part later,
this is more important for now. Just for now. If we can just make it to this
point, get this thing, be this person... then we’ll be okay. Then we’ll be
satisfied with who we are and what we have. Then our lives can really start. But
what if we never get there? What if there’s no there to get to? And, perhaps
scariest of all, what if we get there and we still aren’t satisfied?
Herein lies the true sadness of La La Land’s ending – it reveals itself to be a movie that doesn’t
believe in its own story. It tries to hark back to the ideals of old Hollywood,
where dreams were real and love really could conquer all, but ultimately, after
years of having the new ideals of modern Hollywood shoved down their throats,
its own characters just can’t buy what the film is trying to sell them. Now,
this in itself would not be a bad ending, if it were INTENTIONALLY PORTRAYED as
being tragic in its dramatic irony, with the characters depressingly unaware of
what kind of ending they’re really in. But it isn’t. Chazelle clearly intends
the film’s ending to be a bittersweet one that, while sad, is ultimately for
the best. How do I know this for sure? Because he delivered an ending that was
satisfying in its intentionally tragic dramatic irony in his previous film, Whiplash. In that film, ambitious jazz
student Andrew Neiman pushes himself obsessively to win the respect of his
abusive and manipulative teacher, Terence Fletcher. Andrew is desperate to
become a great jazz drummer, because he thinks that will make him somebody and give
his life worth. He yearns for admiration, approval and acceptance, and being
great is how he’ll get there. He doesn’t really know what “great” is, but he
knows Charlie Parker was it. If only he could be like Charlie Parker, then he’d
be great too. In 60 years, some kid would be looking up to him. He would exist. He’ll do anything to get there.
Over the course of the film, Andrew grows apart from his
loving father, cruelly dumps his new girlfriend, betrays and belittles his
friends and peers and endures constant emotional and physical abuse from
Fletcher until he literally bleeds for his art. He gives up everything he has
for his music – his relationships, his self-respect, his well-being, his entire
life. He even moves his bed into the drum room at his college so he can spend
all day and night practicing, allowing for only a couple hours of sleep here
and there. He’s insulted, attacked, expelled and even hit by a car, but he never stops
fighting for Fletcher’s approval; nothing else matters to him. In the film’s climax, Andrew delivers a spellbinding solo performance and finally wins the
respect of his mentor. At last, he matters. To Andrew, it is a triumphant
ending, a sign that all his hard work and sacrifice has finally paid off, and
as the audience, it’s tempting to get sucked into his perception of things.
Andrew’s performance IS heart-pounding and electric and you can’t help but get
swept up in the excitement. He HAS achieved something... but at what cost? For Andrew
and, briefly, the audience, it’s a triumph, but that momentary feeling of
exhilaration soon fades away, bringing the full tragedy of the film’s ending
into view. Andrew has won the battle, but lost the war. He has gained the
respect of the man he so reveres, but Fletcher is not a man who is worth his
reverence. He is a bully and a thug. The only real winner is Fletcher – he has
finally broken Andrew, who will never again capture another moment of pure joy,
who will never feel truly satisfied with who he is, who will always be wanting
more, and, by Chazelle’s own admission, ‘will be a sad, empty shell of a person
and will die in his 30s of a drug overdose.’ The ending is devastatingly sad,
but effective, because the filmmaker and the audience know something that
Andrew doesn’t. He thinks it’s a happy ending. We know the truth. La La Land’s ending is just as sad, the
only difference is, the majority of the audience seems as blind to this truth
as the characters and, more tellingly, so, it seems, does Chazelle.
La La Land does
have an opportunity to maintain its ideals and say something worthwhile in its
final sequence, where Sebastian plays a reprise of his and Mia’s love theme,
and the two, along with the audience, are whisked away into a romanticised
fantasy where the two never broke up and achieved their dreams whilst
maintaining their relationship. The sequence, which beautifully ties together
all of the film’s musical numbers in an abridged, idealised version of its
story, is a loving homage to the elaborate third act ballets of classic
Hollywood musicals like An American in Paris or Carousel. If the two
leads had taken a bow and the film had ended there, it would have remained ambiguous
as to whether this was just a fantasy in Sebastian and Mia’s heads, a glimpse
of what could have been, or if the magic of the movies had somehow changed
their reality, made things as they should be, forgiven their short-sightedness
and given them the happy ending they deserved. It would have tied in perfectly
with the rest of the film’s tone and themes and I personally would have found
it very satisfying. But it doesn’t end there.
The film leaves the fantasy and returns to reality, where
Mia is married to another man who we know nothing about, with a son who exists
solely as a cheap plot device to stop us from questioning why she doesn’t
simply leave her husband for Sebastian. They share a brief look and she leaves,
probably never to see him again. The music swells. The End. The film not only
dashes Sebastian and Mia’s fantasy, but it denies the audience the opportunity
to believe in it either. After two hours of championing the power of dreams and
art, the magic of music and Hollywood, the need to believe there is still hope
and joy in this modern, cynical world, the movie limply announces its own
impotence and shrugs, ‘Eh, what are you gonna do? That’s life.’ Imagine if, at
the end of Grease, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John got into their car, drove off into the sky... and then
crashed back down to Earth and died. Because cars can’t fly. This is real life.
The ending to La La Land is as
plainly defeatist and unsatisfying.
The thing is, Chazelle is obviously well-versed enough in
the world of old Hollywood to know that the main crux of his ending – the two
romantic leads don’t end up together – is not a new idea. Despite the
prevalence of the aforementioned “happily ever after” myth, not every classic
Hollywood romance does have a happy ending. Casablaca
is perhaps the most famous instance of this, and it’s clear from the references
to it throughout the film that Chazelle is purposefully calling on that a
little in his ending. Suffice it to say, La
La Land is no Casablanca, as
while that film acknowledged the sadness in its own conclusion with great
self-awareness, La La Land does not.
Oh, sure, it acknowledges sadness in its conclusion, but not its own. The
sadness acknowledged in La La Land’s
ending isn’t in La La Land’s ending.
It’s in Casablanca’s, Gone With the Wind’s, Roman Holiday’s, but not here. Just like
Andrew Neiman, La La Land is
tragically unaware of how sad the ending to its story really is. Because it’s
not about a relationship that just didn’t work out and it’s not about two
people who had to make a sacrifice to find greater personal gratification, it’s
about a feeling of emptiness that has permeated a generation, leading some to
forgo things that might really matter to them and that they might not have had
to, as part of an elusive, unending quest to feel successful and fulfilled as
an individual; a quest they feel requires them to shed everything that doesn’t
fit the plan. If it doesn’t fit the plan, then it wasn’t meant to be. If it
wasn’t meant to be, then it’s not worth fighting for. Don’t worry about it. You
just do you. Keep moving forward. Stick to the plan.
Just before the
film’s climax, Mia returns to the coffee shop where she used to serve famous
actresses and dream of being them. Now, at last, she is the famous actress, and
we are expected to revel in her triumph – she’s finally made it. Why? Because
she’s recognised in coffee shops now? Her face is on some posters? Now she’s
one of the special people, not just an ordinary nobody working an ordinary job?
Her “victory” feels as hollow and temporary as Andrew’s. There is no chemistry
between her and her new husband and son, who we barely see for five minutes and
know nothing about. I don’t think the son is even given a name. Their
relationship, for what little we see of it, comes off as sterile and joyless.
Similarly, there is no satisfaction or triumph in Sebastian’s eyes as he
desperately tries to reach the woman he clearly still loves with his music and fails,
only sadness and regret. The film tells us that they both have everything they ever
wanted, even if they’ve lost each other. They made the mature, realistic
decision; staying together just wasn’t feasible. They stuck to the plan. They
are okay now. It’s all going to be okay. It attempts to convey this with a
sense of wisdom, self-awareness and confidence, but does so entirely
unconvincingly and with a pitiable air of obliviousness. La La Land thinks it strides offstage triumphantly, with
self-assured purpose, but it shuffles off awkwardly, like a frequently drunk
friend at a party who insists he has things under control now, he’s got it all
figured out, he’s going to be all right. And you smile and nod and tell him
you’re happy for him, but when he stumbles out of the door at two in the
morning, you turn to your partner and say, ‘I’m worried about him.’
The message that the movie is trying to get across and the
one that most people seem to have taken from it (and of course, I’m not saying
that they’re wrong or that my interpretation is the only true one, this is just
what I got from it) is that personal ambition and self-love is what’s really
important, and sometimes you have to sacrifice things for the sake of what you
want to achieve in life, even if it’s painful. And that’s all fine and good
advice. But, to me, the message that actually comes across, intentionally or not,
one that is so tied to the culture I see reflected in so many of my friends and
peers, is that you MUST prioritise vague ideas about personal fulfilment and professional
development above all else and that everything else in life can wait until you
get to where you need to be. That’s the only way you’ll ever feel good about
yourself. As far as I’m concerned, that’s just another Hollywood lie. We just
don’t recognise it yet.
Time and again, we are fed the same old morals, hear the
same old refrains: “How can you love someone else if you don’t love yourself?”
“You can’t be in a relationship until you’ve figured out your own stuff.” “If
it’s that hard to hold on to, it wasn’t meant to be.” “There are more important
things in life.” But how true is all that, really? Sure, we should all be happy
with who we are and accept the things about ourselves we cannot change, but who
really, honestly, loves themselves? Is purely content in their own company?
Should we even want to be? Who ever completely “figures” themselves out? Do we
really know who we are, what we want, what’s best for us? Is it even possible
to really know those things? Or, when things go wrong, do we just tell
ourselves that we really wanted something else, that it was the right move not
to try and hold onto that one thing, because it’s easier that way? Because it means we don’t have to struggle, or feel pain or regret, we can just keep moving forward, towards our goal. Who reaches
that goal and says, ‘That’s it, I did it. Now I can just be happy and
live my life.’ Nobody. Because that isn’t how life works any more than perfect
happy endings with the good guys always winning and swelling music and elaborate
ending titles is. That’s just the movies. I see so many wonderful, smart, warm,
imaginative people my age who are unsatisfied, lost, confused, repeating these
refrains to themselves over and over. And sure, it might end up being true for some
of them, but what about when it isn’t? And when I think about all the people
who applauded this movie and this ending and who see reflections of their own
lives in it and think it says something true and real about how life is
“supposed” to be lived, I can’t help but think about Andrew Neiman, in his 30s,
sad and unfulfilled and regretful and alone and gone far too soon. And there’s
nothing bittersweet about that. It’s just sad.
email: joetalksaboutstuff@gmail.com
Twitter: @JSChilds
