La La Land is a musical movie about two people (Mia and Sebastian) struggling to follow their dreams. Mia is an aspiring actress who spends her days as a barista at a café at Warner Brothers. Sebastian is an amazing pianist whose dream is to open up a jazz bar and ‘save’ jazz from dying out. The two meet on an LA freeway where he honks at her for not paying attention and she responds by showing him that he was ‘number one’ with one finger in particular. They find themselves continually running into each other and after a romantic evening dance with the city lights casting a perfect backdrop, they fall in love.

This movie focuses on this cruel reality of how hard it is to follow your dreams but also emphasizes how with the right kind of push from the right person can change that cruel reality. Mia and Sebastian didn’t meet to fall in love; they met so that they could help each other follow their dreams. If Sebastian hadn’t encouraged Mia to write and star in her own play then her career wouldn’t have gone anywhere. If Mia hadn’t been with him, then he would have never signed a contract to play with a band and earned the money he needed to open his jazz club.

La La Land is a fantastic movie that will tug at your heartstrings. The love story is realistic, but not necessarily happy. The ending will have you choking on your tears while wondering why reality could be so cruel. But the movie wasn’t all sad; throughout the entirety of the film, you’ll constantly laugh at the sass of the two characters. Variety said, “’La La Land’ starts as a twinkly fantasy of sophisticated innocence, cut with a touch of modern L.A. sass.”

La La Land got incredible ratings all over the board. Common Sense rated it 5 out of 5, Rotten Tomatoes gave it 93% and IMDb gave it 8.7 out of 10. Sally Jensen, a Senior at Bingham, agreed with the all the ratings saying, “At the end of the movie I couldn’t stop crying. I was mad about the ending but after a couple of days I realized how powerful the ending really was.”

La La Land is a great movie with amazing actors and even better music. Its powerful message and great plot make it a movie worth all the tears you’ll surely cry.