It's a nice concept, though hardly an original one: fantasy musical numbers are intercut with "real life" in order to show the inner workings of the characters. It's also a Hollywood Golden Age tribute movie. It's also a classic follow-your-dream tale of an aspiring actress and musician in Los Angeles (LA-La, see?). The problem is, it doesn't do any of these things with enough skill or conviction.

The opening sequence, a dance in a traffic jam, is very pretty and inventive but pretty much irrelevant to everything that follows (a shame, because the singer introducing it is the most musically pleasing thing in the film and you never see her again).

It's very hard to care about Emma Stone as the heroine because you don't really spend time getting to know her before you're supposed to be rooting for her. She worries that she may be just another wannabe and that she doesn't deserve to be a star, and you kind of feel she's right. Which would be fine in the context of another film, about the gap between hopes and reality. But it's very obvious that that's not on the cards for this plot.

It's a shame that so much money and time went into this and so many tricks were missed. The choreography is OK, not as good as it could have been. The singing is OK, except in the case of Stone (good dancer, big eyes, amazing balance on high heels, really not a singer.). The dialogue is OK, sometimes very good, rarely bad.

Lots of avenues are half-heartedly explored in a way that is very frustrating because you see what potential the film had. Hollywood writers are briefly satirised by a talky party guest, the heroine's housemates form a sparkly quartet for an early number, visual nods are made to Funny Face, A Star Is Born, Le Ballon Rouge, the Bandwagon, An American In Paris etc - but none of this is sufficiently dedicated or consistent to hold the film together. It's a series of non-sequiturs.

There are also some bafflingly obvious continuity errors: Stone walks to work in one outfit and leaves in another, for example. And how do the pair get private access to an observatory after hours? And you're supposed to feel sorry for Gosling's jazz musican because "jazz is dying" and no one wants to hear him. I'm sorry? Tell LA that jazz is alive and well in the rest of the world.

The acting is the best thing about it - the rows and the banter and the final climax sequence are brought alive with professional skill by Stone and Gosling. It's the kind of time-filler one might watch on a plane, but I wouldn't bother to watch it twice.

Seven out of seven ain't bad - La La Land bossed all the categories in which it was nominated at the Golden Globes, is up for eleven BAFTAs and surely won't be forgotten by the time Oscar makes his considerations. It tips its hat to the heyday of MGM, shifting those elaborate, seamless dance numbers to the Hollywood of push notifications and star-struck baristas. Its title encoding LA's loquacity and the dreamlike state of living there, the film is undeniably attractive and absorbing, but in the name of hard-hitting investigative journalism, here's how it stands up in all those Globe categories:

Best original song: 'City of Stars'
As I type, the moody Gosling-led ballad is jauntily on repeat in my mind. While in the cinema, the arrangements and the sheer effortless impact of the songs impressed, but I wasn't wowed by their content (with the exception of 'Audition (The Fools Who Dream)'. However, the fact that they've formed a playlist in my head tells that the songs have done their job!

Best Original Score
You can't argue with the lush orchestration, hot jazz and musical gags - unless you're a synth player, in which case you may feel like the bad guy, or unless you have a low cheese threshold. What anchors the music is how it builds out the interiority of its characters - in the 'real' narrative of the film, Emma Stone's Mia is speaking in an intimate audition, but through the song we see the story she tells writ large. Also, cracking up mid-song and presenting some bad cover versions are endearing, unclumsy 21st century ways of making a rather retrospective musical work.

Best actor (Comedy/Musical): Ryan Gosling
Piano hands he may have (eliciting admiration from this pianist who's seen plenty of poor miming), but I'm going to have to come out as a Gosling agnostic. The whole business of liking a Ryan Gosling performance is greatly helped by already liking Ryan Gosling. He does have perfect timing, dance skills and can play the passionate douche convincingly, but he's entirely outshone by the...

...Best Actress in a Film (Comedy/Musical): Emma Stone
As well as the comedy, the presence and the gravity of a central role, Emma Stone brings 360 degrees of roundedness to her actress/playwright Mia, whereas I don't really remember Gosling's facial expression changing... She nails inspiration, epic mockery, acting-as-acting, and being absolutely crushed... but I can't pit them against each other, because their chemistry counts for a lot (as the audience broke its code of silence to opine!). In 'Audition' she's as natural as Julie Andrews and intense as Anne Hathaway in Les Mis. Just to reinforce the point, Stone beat Meryl Streep to this award.

Best screenplay
Again, the retro stylistic framing allows for stylised narrative framing too, which works very satisfyingly at beginning (the two leads' simultaneous stories told one after the other), and in a reimagining of the film's ending at its ending. Very strong in its structuring, segues stunning and editing pretty perfect.

Best film director: Damien Chazelle
The way the story is brought to life is nicely intoxicating too - the placing of the actors in scenes, their movements through the sun- and star-drenched spaces, the couching of Mia's and Seb's aspirations in culture of the first half of the 1900s telling us things about not only the characters' backgrounds and artistic integrity, but also the lens through which contemporary Hollywood is viewed. Chazelle is annoyingly only 31, and the theme of ars gratia artis and presence of JK Simmons are the only things reminding us that he was responsible for the combustible tension of Whiplash.

Best film (Comedy/Musical)
LLL hits all the buttons. Its cinematography is stunning: suddenly revealing the scope of a mass dance routine on a gridlocked freeway; leaving room in the frame in front of Stone as she walks past murals of cinema idols; immersing its audience in opulent new qualities of indigo and emerald, that I wanted to dive into. The segues and sequencing are marvellous, and its message of what a dream can be (galvanising, illusory) is to be commended. Although, and without casting the first stone, I could've done without Gosling's white traditionalist explaining the history of jazz, while John Legend's character's future-orientedness manifests instead as opportunism. A surprising blind spot, and there may be moments too earnest for your taste, but I thoroughly recommend attending this feast for the senses.