With its gangbusters intro, appropriately taking place in an LA traffic jam, La La Land looks like it is about to serve notice on the American film musical with an exuberant energy informing the audience it is in for a fun ride. The energy level however begins to waver when the dependence switches from music and dancing to melodrama and the film, divided into seasons (like LA has them) begins to stumble just before Autumn.

Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone) first meet in less than amicable fashion on the everyday bumper to bumper existence of the LA freeway. Actress Mia works as a barista on a film lot and spends time off going to casting calls that end in disappointment. Sebastian is a quirky, purist, jazz pianist and his own worst enemy when it comes to being employed. The two cross paths again, hook-up and continue their artistic struggle for recognition. When success knocks on both doors it threatens the future of the relationship.

La La Land offers up a handful of well done musical numbers, imaginative dance scenes as well as a some early comic friction between the leads but the story line remains banal. Director Damien Chazelle attempts to circumvent this by adding some "what if" moments to the story to give it more life but it only packs on more minutes to this already overlong musical.

As bargain basement Fred and Ginger the duo offer less than fancy footwork along with pedestrian singing voices but that is part of their charm. Stone at least looks like she is enjoying herself while digging deep enough dramatically to hold some of the films more torpid dramatic scenes together. Gosling is simply a lightweight whose abrasive character offers little to like to begin with and his singing and dancing along with a series of faraway stares grows tiresome by the second half and what started out with the promising chops of another Cabaret eventually degenerates into the mawkish graceless excess of New York, New York.