10 Most Emotionally Devastating Movie Moments Of 2016

Judging by how beloved a movie Damien Chazelle’s La La Land already is, the dreamy musical romance looks set to go down in cinema history as an instant classic. Starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling as star-crossed lovers Mia and Sebastian, an aspiring actress and a down on his luck jazz pianist respectively, the movie has been described as a ‘love letter to old-school Hollywood’ and follows the pair as they try to navigate both the pursuit of artistic careers and their own romance.

Beautifully shot with two winsome leads and whole load of toe-tapping tunes to boot, La La Land swept the board at this year’s Golden Globe ceremony and rightfully so.

One of the movie’s strengths is that despite all its swoony magic, it’s still a wholly contemporary affair that juxtaposes its dreamy romance with the hard realities of being a working artist. Nowhere is this more clear than in La La Land’s bittersweet ending. Spoilers are incoming, so turn away now if you’ve yet to see the film.

Set several years after the main events of the movie, its epilogue shows us our protagonists have achieved their dreams except separately – with Mia a successful married actress with a kid and Sebastian running his own jazz club – as a montage depicts what could’ve been between the pair had they not parted ways to pursue their careers.

It would’ve been far too easy for Chazelle to end with a happy, boy gets girl ending but this conclusion makes the movie much more melancholic and powerful: a reminder that all-round happy endings are the stuff of fairy tales.