As one reaches the end of a journey, it is natural to ask “what if” questions…
We are ending our liturgical cycle, and we will soon begin anew. We are also nearing the end of the secular calendar year, and so likewise will soon begin anew.
Fittingly, the Church begins to deal with the end of the road passages from the Scriptures. We will also begin to start taking stock of this past year, with many annual retrospectives beginning on television.
This naturally leads us to ask those similar road-less-traveled sorts of questions, just as the 2016 musical La La Land, starring Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling, does in dramatic fashion.
The movie itself is visually striking, nostalgic, and sentimental, but with fun musical numbers and a charming back-and-forth between Gosling (Sebastian) and Stone (Mia). This does not begin to highlight the depth of the themes as we follow Mia and Sebastian on their roads to personal and professional growth.
The movie begins, fittingly, on a road, but that is wall to wall traffic, typical of the LA scene. This creates the perfect opportunity for one of my favorite opening numbers. It also symbolizes where Mia and Sebastian are in their lives.
They can both see exactly where they want to be and how close they are to getting there. They just can’t move any closer to it faster than a snail’s pace.
Sebastian has a dream of owning a jazz club as part of his goal of resurrecting the genre. Mia dreams of being a famous actress. Their journeys intertwine briefly but dismissively until a Hollywood party that Mia was reluctant to attend creates the circumstances for their musical meet-cute.
Their whirlwind romance shows the professional rise of one and the professional struggle of another. This, expectedly, strains the relationship. The tension breaks when Sebastian does not attend Mia’s one-woman show on its opening night.
This disappointment, along with the overwhelming mountain of previous ones, leads her to abandon her dreams of acting altogether and move out of Los Angeles. Seb and Mia reunite, though not romantically, because of an opportunity that befalls Mia at what Seb knows will be her big break.
As we jump ahead, we find both of our heroes realize their professional dreams. Mia is now the famous actress that she idolized earlier in the film. She has a family and is happily attending a premier to one of her big budget films. She decides with her husband to celebrate at an intimate venue in town, a jazz club called “Seb’s.”
La La Land
It is here where we realize the point of this post.
In this scene, Mia and her husband watch Seb perform a musical recapitulation of the entire film, except that something is different. It is a “what-might-have-been” for Seb and Mia’s relationship. The same circumstances that pulled them apart are now drawing them closer together. They do what we in the audience expected and wanted so badly, end up happily ever after, together.
It is a painful moment to watch initially, but a beautiful one. We want our characters, and ourselves, to “have it all” without recognizing the consequences of those choices. Would Mia have been able to tap into the pain or drive to be successful without her breakup with Sebastian? Maybe. But what of her husband and daughter, the latter of whom would not exist if Mia had stayed with Seb?
Similarly, would Sebastian have been able to devote himself to the struggles of building a successful nightclub? Would this endeavor be conducive to a typical marriage and family life? What would have happened to their relationship and/or their dreams?
Yes, either one could have sacrificed their dream to preserve the relationship. It is a valid choice when done out of love for the other. Our choice can show us what the real vocation was all along. The fact that neither did shows that perhaps they weren’t called to each after all. They each realized their true vocation in their respective processes.
As an analogy, a person can truly love another person, even romantically, and still discern a call to the priesthood or religious life. It doesn’t invalidate the romantic feelings or un-share the love between them.
It also doesn’t mean that the person is “better” for rejecting the romance for the religious as this scenario could, and often does, play out in the reverse too. How many great husbands started off as seminarians?
One inevitably asks if Mia and Seb made the “right choice” by breaking up or staying together. Making the “right choice” can paralyze many young people by when it comes to their vocation in general or the specifics of how to fulfill it.
The point in asking is not for us to try to figure out how they, or we, could fit square pegs into round holes. The point is that it is not worth asking.
I am reminded of Aslan who instructs Lucy in Prince Caspian that “nobody is ever told” what “would have happened.”
The final sequence of La La Land, though reveling in the “what if” scenario, does not dwell or indulge in it, but returns us back to the reality of both of our heroes’ choices. There will be moments of melancholy for both Seb and Mia. There may even be moments of wistful speculation.
However, their love of their crafts moved their choices. They are both content in them because that truly was their motivation. They are also continuing to pursue those vocations and staying present to them.
Mia doesn’t just “get” to have a spouse and child along with it. She chose them presumably with sacrifice on her and her husband’s part in order to make the relationship work.
As we look back on the past liturgical or solar years, or back on our lives in general, we will inevitably face similar what-if questions and roads-less-traveled scenarios. We can also project this same temptation toward future choices and speculate about the possibilities we are denying ourselves by making one choice or another. Either way we are living in a dream, a fantasy.
Dreaming is healthy for the brain when it is asleep, but sleep is ordered toward waking. Dreaming is ordered toward a healthier functioning of the waking mind, so that the mind can be more present.
What if the “dream” life is the one you choose to live out, in each moment, in service to God and neighbor? What if your “soul-mate” is the one you choose to love (which is the purpose of the soul, by the way) every single day until death do you part? Isn’t this a more empowering scenario than leaving our lives to some vague sense of fate?
Ask the what-if question, play out the possible scenario if it helps make a decision, but make a decision and live contentedly with it, and enjoy the music.
La La Land
Mike Schramm teaches theology and philosophy at the high school and college level in La Crosse, Wisconsin. He earned his MA in theology from St. Joseph's College in Maine and an MA in philosophy from Holy Apostles College. He co-hosts the Voyage Podcast with Jacob Klatte.