Over the last decade the trend for Hollywood musicals has been to shoe-horn romantic plots around the songs of famous bands…think Mamma Mia, Sunshine on Leith and Walking on Sunshine. Refreshingly La La Land is something different, a film where the music and the story blend together to create a cinematic masterpiece.

After his loud, brash and brutal directorial debut, Whiplash, Damien Chazelle took inspiration from the likes of Singing in the Rain and Top Hat for his follow-up, a nod to classic Hollywood musicals.

Starring Emma Stone as aspiring actress, Mia, and Ryan Gosling as disenfranchised jazz fan, Sebastian, La La Land is unafraid to reveal the truth behind the Hollywood dream and takes a more realistic view on the romantic elements of its story than most musicals.

There’s a timeless quality to the film, which despite being set in the present day (the iPhones give it away) could just have easily taken place at any point in the last 50 years. It’s a quality that’s enhanced by the beautiful costumes, carefully crafted sets and powerful cinematography, creating the warm, nostalgic feeling of the film’s core.

One of the film’s stand out moments, for me, is the final sequence as it combines the fantastic performances, sets and costumes with incredible music to create something that is heart-breaking, honest and beautiful, like the film itself.

La La Land is a film you’ll fall in love with, slowly and deeply, and can certainly hold its own amongst the films that inspired its creation.