issy 🥝’s review published on Letterboxd:
I don't know if this is overused or beaten to death, but this is one of those films that reminds me why I love films so much. Sometimes I get in a sort of film-block, where I'm feeling unappreciative of anything put in front of me and I'm unenthusiastic about watching a film at all, and I'll probably watch something to keep my mind occupied some nights, but my heart isn't in it, I'm just bored and the book on my bedside table doesn't scream to me either. But then my mum orders a pizza, and I get this voice inside me saying you know what would go great with a pizza? La La Land. And I'm like damn voice, you're right. And so I go downstairs and I slide it in and the dvd menu pops up and I'm suddenly so much more excited than I was 5 minutes ago and maybe more than I have been for the week before that. And the movie starts and Another Day Of Sun plays and I'm reminded of when I first watched it, in the cinema, and I had been hesitant beforehand out of fear it might've been overhyped and it won't live up to the internet's excitement, but after they all shut their car doors and the 'La La Land' text appeared I had this concrete feeling inside me that knew it was going to be a good film. I knew after those first 5 or so minutes that I had to treasure every moment, because even those 5 or so minutes had gone too fast. So I spent the rest of the film concentrating harder than ever so that I wouldn't miss anything at all but also feeling the inescapable need to look over at my friend after every scene, after so many beautiful shots, after every song, to see if she was seeing what I was seeing. And I still get that feeling just over a year later, in my back room, on my own, in the dark, with my pizza, the urge to check that I'm not making this film up from my own imagination.