Summer: Sunday nights

We’d sink into our seats

Right as they dimmed out all the lights

A Technicolor world made out of music and machine

It called me to be on that screen

And live inside its sheen



La La Land is the genre-throwback that not only captured the entire nation’s heart, but seems to have singlehandedly revived the Hollywood musical. Tonight, it’s up for a record-tying 14 Oscar nominations.

But very little has sparked as much discussion, lately, as La La Land‘s ending. Does it work? How much is real? How many times did you cry? Is it what turns La La Land from an excellent movie to a great movie?

The consensus is the ending is pure fantasy, either A) a visual representation of what Seb puts into his song, or B) nearly a shared hallucination of sorts.

But Damien Chazelle has other ideas…

At the New York Film Critics Circle Awards, Damien Chazelle gave his thoughts on how the ending works by diving back into the glory days of the silents–by explaining the plot to Frank Borzage’s 7th Heaven (1927).

“It’s a love story about a man and a woman, Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor. Charles Farrell goes off to war, dies, Janet Gaynor is informed of his death and holds on to this irrational hope that he’s not dead. Her friends, her family tell her she’s crazy, stop dreaming, be realistic, get on with your life. She insists he’s coming back. There’s an abrupt cut back to the battlefield. Charles Farrell is suddenly alive, inexplicably, and makes his way back home. The last scene, he comes home, they kiss, swell of music, fade to black.

“[How did this come about? Possibly,] the studio fucked over the director, [by insisting on a happy ending.] They reshot something, cobbled it together, and that’s what you got. [Possibly, we could be seeing her] descent into total insanity.”

But Chazelle’s explanation is that Charles Farrell did die, and he literally came back from the dead.

“The reason those two things can coexist is because of how deeply this woman loves him. The emotion was so deep and profound that the laws of time and reality and physics stop existing.

“It’s an idea that speaks to what movies can do, which is that emotion can override everything. You can draw a straight line from that idea to every musical ever made. If you feel enough, you suddenly have a 90-piece orchestra emerge from the heavens and accompany you in song, which is so ridiculous and absurd and yet feels so right sometimes, at least to me.”

Both can coexist.

The emotion was so deep and profound…

That the laws of time and reality and physics stop existing.

Do you know what that means?

La La Land is a universe-jumping time travel movie.

Themes: “They worship everything and value nothing.”

There’s a few things to say before we dive into the universe-jumping and time travel proper. In order to understand what Chazelle is implying, how the time travel mechanics work, and what Seb and Mia are experiencing…we need to take a dive into La La Land‘s themes.

“And it’s dying. The world says, ‘Let it die. It had its time.’ Not on my watch.”

La La Land is not about jazz. For all the controversies, it’s remarkable few critics have picked up on the fact jazz is a convenient, extremely thin metaphor for Hollywood. Seb’s dying jazz is Golden Age Hollywood’s idea of how films work, what they are, and the glories bound up in that all too brief era. John Legend’s empty, soulless, manufactured jazz is modern Hollywood.

“Why do you say ‘Romantic’ like it’s a dirty word?”

Hollywood has become anti-romance. Not romance in the loving sense, but in the sense that labels tales of Camelot “Arthurian Romances,” or pinned its name to the Scientific Romance.

As Merriam-Webster puts it: ” a…narrative treating imaginary characters [in a] usually heroic, adventurous, or mysterious manner; an emotional attraction or aura belonging to an especially heroic era, adventure, or activity.”

Chesterton would call it an attraction to, and knowledge of, the the great goods in life.

Hollywood has done much to sully the heroic, misadventure the adventurous, and dispel mystery; the aura must be stamped out. There are exceptions in modern Hollywood, often on the fringe. For every Guillermo del Toro, Hayao Miyazaki, and pair of Coen Brothers, there are legion Alejandro G. Iñárritus, Zach Snyders, Michael Bays, J.J. Abramses, Uwe Bolls, or Joss Whedons.

To use the phrase I want to use, the cliche, really, I’m going to paint you a picture: a battleship, bristling with hundreds of cannons and dozens of machine-guns, turns to the enemy. Every single weapon aboard fires. La La Land is a broadside against this trend.

When Fall comes like an axe, the Golden Age musical trappings fade. We’re left with a modern drama. And after nearly an hour and a half of Golden Age optimism, being stuck with a modern drama stings.

A friend, a Television Coordinator who shall remain nameless, cried. She left the theatre flushed, deeply hurt. The first time I saw it, an old couple shouted NO at the screen.

It not only stands for Golden Age romance, but puts it directly alongside the hollow, emotionally-unfulfilling stories Hollywood has served for the last decade.

Put like this, there’s no question which is better.

Mechanics: “Do You Want to Stay for Another?”

Everything past this point is a merciless spoiler. You have been warned.

Chazelle set the first fact: there are two universes, both literally real. For the sake of argument, we’ll call the universe where the bulk of La La Land occurs Universe A. We’ll call the universe where the Epilogue occurs Universe B.

I’d normally give some nod toward the usual spiel. You know the one. “Neither universe should be seen as dominant. Multiversal theory says such and such, and the worlds exist separately…” That doesn’t quite seem to be the case, here, but not in the way you expect. We’ll close on that note.

In a matter of moments, after a time jump, we’ve been subjected to a series of shocks. Seb and Mia have broken up! Mia is married to another man! Seb lives alone! And, just like that Winter so many years before, Mia accidentally wanders into the club where Seb plays.

Their eyes meet.

He takes the stage alone.

And, as he’s done through the whole movie, he plays their song…

And in that moment, as Chesterton wrote, they “had fallen from world to world.” The club is gone. The last few years have gone. Mia’s husband, mercifully, is gone.

They’re back on the night they met. The night Seb shoved past her, cold, and earned the frost between them. Everything is as it was. She approaches. He comes toward her. But the precise moment he should shove her away…as the script puts it, “Sebastian decks her with a kiss for the ages.”

They live out the initial year of La La Land‘s story with perfect foreknowledge. Everyone around them, however, doesn’t act like an ordinary alternate universe counterpart. Seb’s boss, played by J.K. Simmons, is now charmed by Seb’s “freak jazz.” Keith immediately turns away. Mia’s show is popular. Everyone acts as though this is the normal order of things–no matter how far it is from the personas we’ve seen.

This isn’t a fantasy, however. Seb and Mia are confused by this change. They run with it, they make the most of their foreknowledge, they live the life they would have–without any of their previous mistakes. But they’re well aware how off everything is.

And then we come to it. As they leave Mia’s play…they step outside reality. They’re well aware that something is terribly wrong.

They fall into something purely and totally a 40s musical, from set design to costume.

And back to the club they go. The initial club. Where they broke up, where Mia has another husband.

What just happened?

We already know there are two universes. We already know both are literally real. We have, I’m sure, already surmised that Mia and Seb crossed between the universes, living some period–probably the entire year–before being dumped back where they started.

But how does this work?

The Cause

Damien Chazelle already told us. “The reason those two things can coexist is because of how deeply this woman loves him. The emotion was so deep and profound that the laws of time and reality and physics stop existing.”

Their love is so deep they not only broke time, in the space of a few minutes they lived an entire year and decided on what their destiny should have been.

The Mechanics

If we assume their love is all there is to it, then it’s relatively simple by time travel standards.

The multiverse theory of time travel dictates you cannot visit your own past. If you succeed in going backward in time, you’ve really just arrived in the past of another universe. Or, perhaps, the same omniversal moment you left–but at a seemingly earlier point in the arrival-universe.

Mia and Seb’s love, then–depending on your preferred grammar–took them “back” or “across” to a place they could send their year together without mistakes.

It also allowed them to decide what their destiny could have been. Pay attention. It’s not a fantasy at first. Reliving from their first meeting to where they broke up is something they’re confused by, but run with as a gift. They’re playing the system to their own advantage.

Then time runs out. They exit to a Golden Age Hollywood soundstage (as noted). What separates this from the previous bit? They’re “concocting” the future they wanted, “out of nothing.”

And then they depart, with a sad smile. Both full aware of what they shared. They’re both going to always remember the home movies of the future they lost.

However…this leaves one significant questions unanswered.

What are the musical numbers?

It’s become the thing to do, of course. Questioning what a musical number is, and how it works inside the world of the musical. Often, to look back up the list, with a Joss Whedon-esque answer: “All musicals are controlled by a demon.”

When the real answer is, quite obviously, “It’s a metaphor given life.”

But in this case, we’re invited to ask the question. There are three narrative oddities.

First, we’re led to believe Seb composed “their” song. And yet, it’s playing over the radio when Mia’s out with Greg. It’s not merely playing over the radio, it’s exactly as he performed it. It’s not a metaphor. She’s well aware of its presence, and we’re shown the speaker it pours out of. Its physical presence is directly what changes her course of action.

It’s literally impossible for that song to have appeared on the radio, particularly in that exact version.

Second, I’ve mentioned the soundstage Mia and Seb step out on. Earlier, in Universe A, they pass it in the MGM lot. It’s another set seemingly abandoned in the studio’s rush to ignore the Golden Age.

This soundstage seems to be Universe B’s underlying reality. When Seb and Mia exit into Universe A’s underlying reality, in the Planetarium dance, they find starstuff and the void. When they exit into Universe B’s, an intelligent design–and music.

The entire latter part of their time in Universe B, from the soundstage to their exit, is spent in this underlying reality. The base components. It’s pure the Old Hollywood magic–soundstages, sets, Fred and Ginger dance-number stages, a matte-painting Paris. They’re in a timeless sort of movie logic. Everything operates according to the logic and rules of a Golden Age musical.

Third, the musical numbers drive the plot. If they’re metaphorical, it’s hard to explain how “Someone in the Crowd” or–especially–“A Lovely Night” turned out.

The Ramifications

Between those, we can deduce all of the musical numbers are reality bubbles, bits of Universe B’s magic breaking through into Universe A.

Universe B is desperate to break-through, and repair the world. It guides people, as we saw through Mia and speaker. It wants to remake Universe A’s void into magic, and sad endings into happy ones. It is still the weaker universe, only able to substitute brokeness for bittersweetness.

Universe B seems to be growing in strength through the movie, from simple musical numbers to pulling people through to visit–if only temporarily.

Even if Universe B couldn’t quite give Seb and Mia their Hollywood ending, we’re left with this fact:

Universe B’s strength is returning.

The Old Hollywood charm and magic has reignited.

And as much as Universe A may fight it, with all its empty empire, the Golden Age is returning.