“Moonlight” and “La La Land” are easily the two biggest movies of 2016, scoring six and seven golden globe nominations, respectively. While Moonlight won one of six categories and “La La Land” won all seven of their nominations, the two films were mostly in separate categories and avoided comparison. But that will change on Jan. 24 when Oscar nominations are announced and, as expected by every Oscars prediction, “Moonlight” and “La La Land” will go head to head in best picture and a number of other categories.
“La La Land” is a beautifully crafted film and deserves to be seen, but is it the crowning cinematic achievement of 2016? No. In a year when race relations and drug abuse seemed to come to a climax in prevailing political discourse and headline grabbing events, a movie about drug culture, mass incarceration, and school violence set in Miami, Florida and Atlanta, Georgia seemingly encapsulates all of the emotional turmoil that has marred this country in 2016.
Yet, these themes are not the essence of “Moonlight”, and director Barry Jenkins does not harp on them nor dramatize them.
While they are part of what makes Moonlight so captivating, they are not the heart of the film. Director Barry Jenkins presents these stereotypes of the black male experience in Moonlight to break them with nuanced, varying meanings of hard life experiences.
“Moonlight” doesn’t rest on a blanket story or overarching experience, but where “Moonlight” subverts stereotypes, “La La Land” espouses them.
The film avoids being corny and boasts an old Hollywood kind of magical realism that makes the film seem larger than anything else in theaters. However, the message to dreamers to keep on dreaming in the land of Hollywood is nothing new; the relationship between Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling create a romcom-on-acid trip that, underneath the musical references and beautiful score, is as predictable as any big-budget superhero film. The plight of a white man wanting to save jazz and a barista hoping to break into stardom is always alluring to a core movie-going audience, but that doesn’t make it the best movie of 2016.
They are equally beautiful films, and both boast amazing cinematography and artistic vision. The use of vibrant, full colors and brilliant artistic direction are what has these two films racking up awards along with their centering on acting and emotion. Yet in “La La Land” the beautiful storytelling masks what is a fairly basic trope.
Don’t take this the wrong way, “La La Land” does deserve to be seen and awarded, but it is nowhere near the must see of 2016. However, with a larger budget and two of the biggest names in Hollywood, “La La Land” is impossible to avoid while “Moonlight” is only playing in one theater in Baton Rouge. This has nothing to do with the value of either film, simply the commercial weight of both. “La La Land” is the musical equivalent to a Marvel Studios film–big budgeted, easily entertaining, yet lacking a groundbreaking narrative.
Unfortunately, your average moviegoer and “La La Land” lover has rarely heard anything of “Moonlight” other than it’s name, despite both being equally critically acclaimed.
“Moonlight”’s abstract message can resonate with nearly everyone: it has themes of masculinity, queerness, blackness, and addiction. Of course this film depicts a specific reality for a specific kind of American that makes the film even more insightful. As A. O. Scott wrote in the New York Times, “Moonlight” is “both a hard look at American reality and a poem written in light, music and vivid human faces.” The film is a trifecta of social urgency, artistic creation, and personal value that all artistic mediums play into. Not to mention being simply captivating.
To overlook “Moonlight” and instead call “La La Land”, or any other film for that matter, the best movie of 2016 would be a shame.
Ryan Thaxton is a 20-year-old journalism junior from Monroe, Louisiana.