Now showing at the Old Greenbelt Theatre

Stephen Hawking and theoretical physics tantalize us with an alternative universe in which Zayn is still a member of One Direction. In another—or maybe the same—universe, the outcome of the 8 November 2016 elections gives the United States its first female president, but I hope the Chicago Cubs would still win the World Series. Reality having delivered so many improbable surprises of late, I am not surprised that contemporary novels and films play with the idea that anything possible will—and could—happen somewhere and sometime. Kate Atkinson’s Life after Life depicts the many realities of Ursula Todd, an English girl born again and again just after the First World War. Ursula’s RAF pilot brother Teddy, in Atkinson’s follow-up novel, A God in Ruins, receives another chance to survive and raise a family. Philip K. Dick presents us with a darker premise—a world in which the Axis wins World War II—in The Man in the High Castle.

Even musicals nowadays, such as Damian Chazelle’s La La Land, dabble in alternatives. In the film’s boy-meets-girl plot, the songs and dances of aspiring jazz pianist Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and aspiring actress Mia (Emma Stone) express limitless possibilities—the things they wish they could do or say or the alternatives that might be, if only in their dreams. Sebastian and Mia are predictable, though charming, characters, and their story arc probably holds no surprises, but you don’t really care because you’ve already been seduced by the visuals and the music. Gosling and Stone are passable singers and more than passable dancers, and their numbers show the real chemistry between the two.

This film is all about the staging and opens with a big production number during a traffic jam on the L.A. Freeway, not a venue usually associated with athletic dancing. California is a sunny paradise of saturated primary colors where every season is beach weather. In one musical number set in winter, Mia and her three roommates are dressed in sweetly retro frocks and heels and dance down a dark deserted street.

Reality and unreality play footsie with each other. Don’t question how barista Mia can afford a Prius or why these two don’t Skype. Especially don’t explore deeply the disconnect between Sebastian’s dream of becoming a jazz musician and his close and obsessive study of the recordings of the jazz greats of the past. He’s a bit too much of the traditionalist for such an improvisational musical genre as jazz. The musical score is more in the realm of charming, though haunting, Frenchified show tunes.

La La Land deserves its 14 Oscar nominations and earns 4.5 reels for its gorgeous cinematography, its imaginative musical numbers, and for making me care about characters depicted by actors I am normally lukewarm about.

Check the theater website for information about movie times and online tickets: http://greenbelttheatre.org/ La La Land accessibility: OC, 12:00 pm Sunday; all other showings with subtitles, CC, and descriptive audio.