Life is good series: What was La la land trying to say?

by Sophie Andrews

***warning: spoilers ahead***

Recently, I watched the 2017 hit, ‘La la land’, a musical showcasing the tough choices some of us have to make between a major career, or true happiness. So which is it?

The musical highlighted that both cannot be attainable, and nearing the end of the film, we see the protagonist ‘Mia’, displaying a sense of disappointment with what could have been with ‘Sebastian’, but what was truly demonstrated to be completely impossible.

In the film, Mia and Sebastian fall in love, both having big dreams, whilst working to help each other to get there; Mia is an aspiring actress and Sebatian’s dream is to open up a jazz bar, the genre of music he feels so passionately about. We are first presented with ‘the dream’: Mia and Sebastian have a supportive and compatible relationship and their Hollywood dreams seem to be in reach, however we soon see this crumble. Sebastian enters into a band, which turns out to be a big hit, however the band doesn’t play any jazz music and we start to understand his intentions of doing this for the money. Through his new occupation, he struggles to show support for Mia’s dreams, including missing her intended ‘breakthrough’ project, running her own one woman show and their relationship crumbles into oblivion.

Mia enters another audition, and manages to secure a role that eventually gives her the fame and significance she truly desired. Mia’s costume and hair in the breakup bench scene between her and Sebastian emphasises her conflict between what she really wants. Mia’s red, vibrant hair conveys a sense of passion and fire to succeed within her, she wears a soft blue jumper, an icier colour, connoting sadness and loss. With this contrast, we understand the difficulty of making the choice between a dream career or true love and happiness. Later in the film, we see a montage of both Mia’s and Sebastian’s lives after their split apart; Mia is a hit in the acting industry, she is well known and famous and Sebastian finally opens up a very successful jazz bar. In this moment, it appears that both Mia and Sebastian believe that ‘Life is Good’ and this continues, until one of the very last scenes.

When Mia and Sebastian see each other for the first time since the breakup in Sebatian’s jazz bar, which Mia, previously actually helped name, they share a long and intense stare and this is it is clear that Mia always wanted both. The scene of her imagination lasts minutes, so we as an audience even start to believe it’s real. When the scene ends, we realise that Mia’s life wasn’t the perfect dream it was presented to be, as she missed out on her true love and happiness. So we have to question, did Mia really believe that ‘Life was good’ or was her career good? I don’t believe her career defined her life, through the final upsetting scene of what could of been.