A stone’s throw from Hollywood, she dreams of becoming an actress, her, opening her own jazz club… Between homages to musical comedies and nostalgic looks at unseen cinema, Damian Chazelle’s multi-Oscar winning film Stone and Ryan Gosling with Emma.
In Los Angeles, Mia dreams of becoming an actress. Between two auditions, he serves coffee near Hollywood Studios. A jazz pianist, Seb decides to play the hated repertoire in a restaurant, while waiting to open his own club. Their common desire to live for art brings the two young men together. But will their love resist their ambitions?
A musical romance
From the beginning, in a sequential shot, the tone is set: stuck in a huge traffic jam, passers-by drift through “Another Day of Sun,” a score composed by Justin Hurwitz, singing and dancing on the roof of a car. An ode to Los Angeles, all brought to life by the colors of their clothes (blue, yellow, green, red). With this homage to musical comedies – some will find it amusing to see the references Ladies No Rocheforthas let’s sing below there the rain or else Red Mill -, Damien Chazelle (Whiplash) takes a look that is both joyous and melancholy at a Hollywood that no longer exists: these shows, whose choreography leads to the rhythms of iconic original soundtracks, independently of the progression of fantasy. In a new situation where storytelling is king, Mia and Seb, played by Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, sparkling as ever, are condemned to sacrifice their passions to pursue their personal ambitions. But like his last film, Babylon, released in 2023, which celebrates the cinema of the 1920s, the Franco-American director revives the romanticism of past popular cinema and offers a glimmer of hope. If, from now on, dancing and singing are no longer self-evident, an idea of love that will free itself from the material constraints of reality resides in the middle of a cardboard set in a California studio.
