***Warning: May contain spoilers, but not about City’s season***
‘City of Stars, are you shining just for me?’
Everyone deserves some downtime, and Manchester City’s glittering array of household names are no different. It has been been a roller coaster season thus far for the boys in blue, with every performance and result attracting intense scrutiny.
They currently reside in 5th place in the table, ten points off the pinnacle. By majority standards, this would be judged as admirable progress for a side under new management, but the stakes are higher than most at the Etihad these days.
For a squad that boasts such world-class talents as Kevin De Bruyne, Raheem Sterling, Sergio Aguero, David Silva, Fernandinho, Leroy Sane and John Stones, anything less than top billing is seen as sorry failure.
When they are all coached by arguably the best manager in the world in Pep Guardiola, every defeat is dissected and condemned from all angles – and Guardiola is just the type of over-thinking perfectionist to take such criticism to heart.
So a team-bonding trip to the pictures this week made perfect sense. It would destress worrying minds and relax wary bodies. Whatever your day-to-day concerns, the right kind of movie can remove you from the daily grind and act as an escape.
But what to see? Gut-wrenching fantasy A Monster Calls? Stunning, but brutal with it. Sci-fi thriller Passengers? It could be seen as a comment on certain members of the team. Silence? Make your own joke up. And Manchester By The Sea is too literal by half.
We had the @ManCity lads down this afternoon enjoying @LaLaLand @ODEONMcr…no better way to celebrate Pep's birthday! 🎉 #MCFC pic.twitter.com/Z8XDeKiDJ2
— Printworks (@MCRPrintworks) January 18, 2017
In the end, Pep plumped for the critically-acclaimed La La Land, starring Hollywood A-listers Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone, and directed by the insanely precocious Damien Chazelle. At first thought, it seems like the ideal choice.
Incredible talent at the top of their game? Check. A dreamy slice of finely-crafted escapism? Check. A film that has already won a record number of Golden Globes, and is set to enjoy similarly spectacular success at the Oscars? Double check.
Some would say it is canny management on Guardiola’s part; to subliminally inspire his expensively-assembled cast to work as an ensemble and reap bountiful rewards come awards’ season. Except, like the movie in question, it could all end in tears.
That’s because La La Land, for all its old-school glamour and show-stopping song-and-dance numbers, is gorgeously fatalistic at its heart. The underlying sense – even at its most irresistibly hopeful – is one of dreamy melancholia.
Protagonists Mia and Seb are starry-eyed lovers who urge each other on to achieve their greatest dreams, because they love each other so much. But in the end, this achieves the heartbreaking result of losing each other.
Behind the gorgeous pomp and engrossing circumstance, La La Land is a love letter to romantic failure. At one point, Seb asks his sister,  “Why do you say ‘romantic’ like it is a dirty word?” She explains wallowing in loss is not romantic.
But the entire film points to contrary, and that is particularly close to the bone for City. Before the petrodollars, beneath the numerous rebrands, Manchester City – perhaps more than any other club – has always romanticised failure.
Losing everything but heart is what Manchester’s blue half were known for – and it was a weird badge of honour. Just like the lead characters of La La Land, City would dream big, wish for ultimate happiness, but be okay with not achieving it.
As Vulture’s Hunter Harris writes so aptly of Chazelle’s film: “La La Land ultimately is not about Mia and Sebastian’s romance. The real romance [is] with the shimmer of dreams. It’s fine they don’t end up together.”
La La Land‘s happy-sadness isn’t and shouldn’t be what Guardiola’s Manchester City is all about – but the tragic sentiment of the movie harks back to an old-school, romantic version of the club.
It remains to be seen whether Pep’s reign is the start of something wonderful, or one more dream that cannot come true.
