Following up on his breakout sensation Whiplash—which won three Oscars in addition to top prizes at the Sundance Film Festival—Damien Chazelle is back in the awards season conversation with the ambitious, star-studded La La Land. Set for release this December, it’s another musically-themed effort from the director, rich with dark undertones and emotional complexity. And given Chazelle’s increased profile and the impressive cast he’s assembled, expectations on the film are about as high as they are on any other this year.
Described as an old-fashioned romantic musical, La La Land reunites Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone as lonely artists living in contemporary Los Angeles. They fall in love, but their connection is challenged by the difficult choices that meet anyone striving to balance a romance and a career in the cutthroat climate of Hollywood. John Legend co-stars in the movie alongside Finn Wittrock, Rosemarie DeWitt, and J.K. Simmons, who won the Best Supporting Actor Oscar last year for Whiplash.
La La Land will open the Venice Film Festival at the end of August—which undoubtedly will serve as its primary awards audition—before a limited theatrical release on Dec. 2. The film will feature choreographed numbers in addition to original music, as teasingly indicated here by Gosling’s rendition of the song “City of Stars.” Feel free to swoon while we await word on what else Chazelle and La La Land has in store.
