La La Land vs Casablanca
The ending of La La Land is one of the best I have seen. (Spoilers ahead) The ending is sad if one expects Seb and Mia to marry and live happily ever after. The ending is happy if one wants Seb and Mia to succeed in their professional careers, living their dreams in the dream la la land.
What fascinated me was the multiple references to the 1942 movie Casablanca - at least 4 times. In Casablanca Rick (Humphrey Boghart) and Ilsa (Ingrid Bergman) don't get together, just as Seb and Mia in La La Land. But the reasons for their parting of ways couldn't be more dissimilar in Casablanca and La La Land.
Casablanca is setup during WWII. In Casablanca, Rick and Ilsa do not get together because Rick decides that he will sacrifice his love for Ilsa in order to give the Allies a better chance of winning the war against the Nazis.
In La La Land, Seb says he does not want to try to make things work with Mia because he wants them both to focus on their demanding careers in show business.
In Casablanca the Rick and Ilsa give up love for the sake of a cause that is bigger than either of them - which is to win the war against the Nazis. In La La Land, the cause for which they give up their love is rather self-serving - they give up love for the sake of their own career development.
The choice of Casablanca reminds me of the verse where Jesus says in Matt 10:39 Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. This is a paradoxical saying.
How can one lose and gain at the same time?
When one looses one's life for the sake of the bigger principle, the bigger cause, bigger than one's narcissistic needs, then one gains a deeper sense of purpose and meaning in life.
Losing life for the sake of a bigger cause is not a subtraction game, it is a multiplication game. In Casablanca, upon making this heroic sacrifice (losing Ilsa to Victor) Rick gains a life long friend in Captain Renault. Captain Renault himself has a moral change upon seeing Rick's principled sacrifice. Rick's actions creates a kingdom of love and peace. In contrast, in La La Land, Seb and Mia's sacrifice of their love merely creates a kingdom of artists seeking fame.
From a theological perspective, we see human beings as made in the image of the creative God. So we can see creativity as a deeply human value. By the same token, we are also made in the image of a deeply relational God - Trinity, three persons but one God. So it is human to long for connection. In La La land Seb and Mia are creative people. The give up on their love for each other for the sake of pursuing their creative spark in a way that makes the choice about themselves unlike the choice of Casablanca.
Rick's choice in Casablanca to give up Ilsa is more Christlike than Seb in his choice to give up Mia for the sake of Jazz. Rick's actions creates a kingdom of connection, love and peace, Seb actions creates a world of lonely talented individuals.