Ultimately Emma Stone and Damien Chazelle's vision make the movie work, but this could've been a lot better. Its heart is in the right place: it feels sincere, joyful, fun-loving, ambitious, majestic... All the things that make the movies it references so special. The music itself is also good, but it falls flat in its execution. It's weird because the musicality of Whiplash was so believable, but here the singing is sub-par, the tap-dancing in particular is kind of a joke, and the main theme is overplayed to a ludicrous degree (I counted like five or six times? Come on--if it's good then two or maybe three times should be plenty). I'm not saying you have to get out there and be Gene Kelly or Astaire/Rogers, but I'll be damned if anyone besides Stone exhibited even a fraction of the electricity required to truly pay homage as intended. Gosling in particular was pretty stone cold. I know that's kind of his thing, but here he seemed miscast.

It has some great moments. The planetarium sequence was stunning. The magical realism really fit the tone. It's a shame there were no other moments like that. Emma Stone has never been so arresting. She dominated every scene, and the movie dragged when she wasn't around. The opening number in particular is somewhat of a head-scratcher. The song is good but the long-take emphasis really does it (and other scenes) a disservice--it doesn't seem spontaneous or lively so much as something obviously labored over, the twentieth take where everyone is just a little exhausted and mostly concerned with not making mistakes. There's little doubt in my mind it will win the Oscar for best picture. I will not be upset. Like I said, its heart is in the right place. Emma Stone was fantastic, and I imagine it looked better in Chazelle's head than it does on film. But it feels a little like The Artist in how its pleasures are mostly referential rather than inventive.