Damien Chazelle’s sophomore movie “La La Land” tells the tale of two aspiring performers. Mia (Emma Stone) is a young actress struggling with the audition circuit. Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) is a young jazz musician trying to breathe new life in a “dying” genre.

As you could have guessed by the plethora of trailers and posters, “La La Land” is a musical. The movie, as a whole, is reminiscent of the golden age of Hollywood, and it has enough cliches for it to be familiar, but with originality to make it fresh.

It’s a musical for the new generation, with familiarity for older crowds to enjoy but with a different tone and story for a younger audiences.

The music is  fantastic.  Even those who dislike musicals will find themselves tapping their feet to a few songs.

The movie opens strong with “Another Day of Sun,” an upbeat tune set in a traffic jam describing the bittersweetness of trying to make it in Hollywood.

It ends with Mia’s tearful soliloquy called “The Ones Who Dream,” which gives hope to those who have felt discouraged in pursuing a dream.

The weakest song would have to be “City of Stars,” mainly because of Sebastian’s uninteresting voice.

While the writing is also wonderful, the story itself is predictable. By the end of the first quarter of the movie, you get a clear picture of what will happen to the main characters.

There are moments that will make you laugh out loud, but also moments that will make you cry. Stone and Gosling each give some of the best performances of their careers.

Cameos by like John Legend and J.K. Simmons, feel like a good fit rather than an afterthought.

If you have seen Chazelle’s previous film, “Whiplash,” you’ll be in for a peasant surprise as the two movies are nearly polar opposite.

While “Whiplash” sets the scene in a darker way, “La La Land” is peppy, upbeat, and lighthearted.

There isn’t anything quite as intense as “Whiplash” in “La La Land,” but there are some moments that make you feel for the characters, particularly towards the end of the film.

The story really begins shortly after “Another Day of Sun” where the characters from the opening number dissipate and the audience is left with a Los Angeles traffic jam.

We see Mia rehearsing a monologue in her car and Sebastian listening to  Jazz music in his car, singing along to the tune. Mia is distracted by her own work and doesn’t notice traffic moving along.

Sebastian keeps beeping his horn but she refuses to move. We see Sebastian drive up beside her and beep his horn to antagonize Mia, who gives him a nice “how do you do” by way of the middle finger and he speeds off. This is the first interaction between the two characters.

After the opening scene, the story dives right into Mia and Sebastian’s career struggles. Mia goes to an audition where she is almost instantly rejected. Defeated, but not done, she goes through several other auditions and is rejected from each one.

After this sequence, we are introduced to Sebastian. He’s buying coffee and staking out a small club. It cuts to him in his barebones apartment.  Not much furniture but a lot of music memorablia.

The movie cuts to Mia getting ready and leaving for party. When she is on her way to her car she finds that it has been towed.

We then see Sebastian trying to make ends meet by playing at a small restaurant. He talks to the manager (J.K. Simmons) for a bit where the manager tells him to “not play anything off of the playlist.”

Sebastian with a fake smile starts playing festive songs like “Jingle Bells” and “Santa Claus is Coming to Town.”

Later, we hear him go off the playlist and play freestyle jazz on the piano.

Coincidentally, Mia is walking by and stops because she loves the music she is hearing. She walks in right after he finishes and not too long after the manager fires him. He brushes off her attempt to tell him how beautiful his playing was, not even acknowloging her presence.

The story heats up from there as the couple meets a second time, this time with Sebastian playing with an 80’s cover band at a party that Mia is attending. Sebastian is clearly miserable and Mia heckles him as a way to push back after what happened at the restaurant. The two start talking and they acknowledge the coincidences (almost fourth wallesque) that they keep running into each other.

Without spoiling the plot further, I’ll just leave you with this: the pros of the movie far outweigh the little cons that it has. If you haven’t seen the movie already, I highly suggest you see it soon.