I Was Emotionally Catfished by a Tap Dance Under the Stars

The first time I watched La La Land, I felt like I had been emotionally catfished with a warning label.

My best friend Amy had been trying to get me to watch the movie for a while. She knew me well; my love for aesthetics, jazz music, and movies that feel like dream sequences dipped in stardust. But before we hit play, she turned to me and said, “Just so you know… I don’t think you’re going to like the ending.”

That should’ve been my clue.

Instead, I scoffed. “I’m fine with sad endings,” I said, with the confidence of someone who absolutely was not fine with what was about to happen.

Two hours and one musical heartbreak later, I was sitting in stunned silence, mentally rewriting the ending with every possible scenario where Mia and Sebastian did end up together. I remember turning to Amy and going, “Wait. That’s it?” She just gave me the I warned you look. I hated the ending. I hated how unresolved it felt. I hated how real it was.

But here’s where things got weird: I kept rewatching it.

Somewhere in those rewatches, that gut-punch ending began to shift from something I resented to something I respected. The movie didn’t lie to me. It told the truth. And the truth is that dreams and timing don’t always hold hands. You can love someone deeply and still outgrow them. You can choose the spotlight over the slow burn. La La Land doesn’t sugarcoat ambition or romance, it lets them crash into each other. And somehow, that became comforting.

And can we talk about Seb's love for jazz? For some reason, every single year, jazz ends up being my top music genre. It’s my very favorite unusual fun fact. Like, out of all the genres, jazz? Really? But maybe it’s not so surprising. Jazz is unpredictable, messy, beautiful. It spirals and loops and never quite resolves and I think that’s why I love it. That’s also why I love La La Land. It’s not just a movie. It’s a jazz solo in cinematic form.

Add to that the unapologetically dreamy Hollywood aesthetic, the golden-hour glow, the tap dance under the stars, the reverence for old movie magic and it just feels like a world I want to live in. Even when it breaks my heart. Especially when it breaks my heart.

I don’t always know why I put it on again. Sometimes I just need it. The way someone might crave comfort food or a playlist that scratches an emotional itch. It reminds me that life is rarely clean-cut. That heartbreak doesn’t mean failure. That dreams are complicated. That beauty and loss can co-exist.

So thank you, Amy for the warning I didn’t listen to, and the movie I didn’t know I’d fall for. La La Land didn’t win me over instantly. But now it’s a part of me in all the ways that matter.