(CNN) At first blush "La La Land" looks like a return to the musicals of old -- a "Singin' in the Rain" for our time, complete with a boy-meets-girl romance against a starry showbiz backdrop. But the movie is more profound than that, one whose buoyant musical numbers add luster to its deeper core.

Establishing himself as a major talent in his early 30s, writer-director Damien Chazelle expands upon the promise of "Whiplash" with a film rich in its palpable sense of longing and weighty because of its rumination on the compromises that must be made to reach those goals. Yet it's dressed up in dazzling song-and-dance routines, in what plays like a love letter to artists of every stripe.

"La La Land" is also, it's worth noting, wonderfully uplifting, in stark contrast to some of this year's other award contenders. Whether that taps into a certain dourness in the national mood remains to be seen, but the project should be more commercially appealing than many of the laudable candidates for such honors. (As an aside, there aren't many legitimate musicals to vie for the Golden Globes' best "comedy or musical" category.)

The story is so simple that describing risks doing the movie an injustice. Mia (Emma Stone) is an aspiring actress, working as a barista on the Warner Bros. lot. She meets the curt, brooding Sebastian (Ryan Gosling), a jazz purist who labels himself "a serious musician" and yearns to open a club, while playing music that he doesn't much like in order to barely make ends meet.

Their first encounter happens wordlessly on a freeway ramp, as the beeps and groans of L.A. traffic (an ongoing character in the story) give way to a raucous dance number, with bodies flashing across hoods and roofs.

Read More