So this is clearly Damien Chazelle’s love letter to movie musicals, to the city of LA, and to the whole idea of doing artistic work. It starts with two failing would-be creatives — Emma Stone wants to be an actress, but is a barista whose frequent auditions keep going nowhere; Ryan Gosling wants to run a serious jazz club, but is in trouble at his restaurant piano job for freelancing on the set list — as they meet each other in romcom fashion, complete with song and dance number.

The movie, then, is a musical exploration of the progress of both their relationship and their creative ambitions, as we see them try out different endeavors with varying degrees of success, and try to figure out how to integrate the demands of their art with their feelings for each other.

It’s almost self-consciously classical in what it’s doing, both in its direct style and in its frequent references to classic Hollywood. As a result, it can feel like pastiche more than something truly original; its stars are compelling actors, but they’re put into too-familiar situations that they rarely get a chance to rise above; and Chazelle is basically competent, but his direction never exceeds competence. But the movie is elevated somewhat by its ending, which I think is more interesting than the rest of its storyline. I’m going to spoiler-protect this; don’t read it if you intend to watch the movie and haven’t.

Spoilers

So after they’ve both had some career failures and relationship troubles, Stone gets a chance for an important acting role in Paris, which will require her to part from Gosling for a year or so. He encourages her to go do it, and they profess their undying love for each other.

And then it’s five years later. We see Stone, clearly successful now, reprising an earlier celebrity-encounter coffee shop scene from the other side of the counter. And then we see her come home… to her husband, who is not Gosling, and their child.

Of course, the movie needs to bring her and Gosling together for narrative closure, and so she ends up with her husband at a jazz club — which, surprise, is using the name and logo she’d designed for Gosling earlier in the movie, because turns out he’s also been successful in achieving his artistic dreams.

But even though they’ve both been successful, this is not an uncomplicatedly happy ending. Chazelle gives us a moment when they see each other in his club, and we get a montage version of the alternate world where things went a little more smoothly for them — where their initial meeting was a bit less hostile, where some of their earlier creative efforts didn’t fail, where they made some better decisions, and where they ended up staying together and enjoying both the success they have today, but also a happy relationship with each other. It’s the happily-ever-after that’s been set up, and that a film this dedicated to romantic movie logic might have delivered; but here, it’s presented as just a wistful dream.

The characters, sharing this vision in its own bit of movie logic, acknowledge with a look and a smile that this would have been a good life. And then she leaves with her husband, he goes back to his jazz band, and they continue living their actual lives. It reminds me a bit — I suspect intentionally — of a similar moment in The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, and works much better than a more straightforwardly happy ending could have.

So yeah, I’m a sucker for that kind of thing, and the ending got me. Even with that, the movie still doesn’t rise to greatness — you’ll notice I didn’t even mention the songs here, despite this being a musical; that’s because they’re competent but forgettable. With the exception of the ending, competent but forgettable is the register the movie works in. But I don’t want to be too critical: Competent pastiche isn’t nothing, and it’s not like the modern movie landscape is otherwise full of classical musicals, you know? Even if this is more imitative than transformative, there’s absolutely enough here for any fan of old Hollywood musicals and traditional romances to enjoy.