Throughout the picture, Damien Chazelle doesn't take a decision on what kind of picture to show. The film appears to be a random collage from a number of chapters from some cyclopedia about film making.

Being rapidly dragged through diverse genres, heartlessly knitted together, it's hard to get emotionally bound with the story or with the characters in the picture.

I felt like a 1st grade student watching a training movie presenting a sketch of different genre styles.

The base story, a Becoming of Age story, is obtrusively filled with all kinds of styles. I was permanently asking myself: Why is he doing this now? What's his motivation? What's the story's motivation? For example: --- I guess the musical elements where supposed to convey love emotion. But why have the actors been so unemotionally, even dismissively, playing it? --- What's been the reason for taking so much time for conveying that the Mia character is an actress? That fact doesn't add to the story at all.

--- There is an (utterly awesome) long lasting uncut scene. It's a performance highlight. But why on earth is it applied to a negligible chat between lovers? --- Why are all the musical artists depicted in the film so emotionless? I understand the jazz club scene as a reminiscence to the jazz club scene in The Glenn Miller Story. But how dull is the La-La-Land version compared to that? --- Speaking of dull: The score was extremely boring. Cheap jazz licks, carelessly arranged.

--- In the musical scenes I was very much in doubt whether the musical text was meant to be serious or ironic. I was asking myself: Is this a Fourth Wall movie or was this a movie with a story to cling to? All in all, to me the movie appeared to be some kind of a bachelor's academic thesis. And I don't understand what makes the movie worth a nomination for even one single Academy Award.