Lost In Translation: How Assumptions Interfere in La La Land

Lou Dos Reis ‘27 

La La Land, a love story that follows two dreamers, Sebastian (Ryan Gosling) and Mia (Emma Stone). Their passionate affair comes to an end by the very same thing that brought them together in the first place, their dreams. Throughout the movie, Sebastian and Mia encounter multiple situations in which communication, or lack thereof, amounted to unnecessary arguments, which ultimately contributed to their end. The moral of the story is, assumptions kill effective communication, and Sebastion and Mia are living proof.  

Sebastian and Mia sit down to have dinner together, both of them attentively listening, maintaining eye contact, and dialogue flowing. There is a switch in dynamic when their friendly conversation turns into an argument. After Mia realizes that she and Sebastian will be spending much less time together because of Seb’s new touring gig, their voices begin to rise. The communication slowly becomes unproductive, eye contact is lost, and it is filled with assumptions, both hearing what the other did not say. At one point Mia starts to speak saying, “I don’t know, I didn’t think the band would–” and Sebastian chimes in to complete her thought saying, “you didn’t think we’d be successful,” and Mia corrects him by saying “No, that’s not what I meant.”  

Sebastian continues to lean into this harmful pattern, throwing in another thought he concluded based on an assumption. Sebastian says, “this is what you wanted from me,” Mia questions what he means by asking, “to be in this band?” to which Sebastian replies, “to have a steady job,” and Mia spills her true feelings saying, “yes, I wanted you to have a job so you could take care of yourself and start your club.” Sebastian assumes that this job, the touring with a band job, was what Mia wanted for him, but in reality, she truly just wanted Sebastian to follow his dream of opening a jazz club. The lack of letting each other explain their true feelings and not discussing their future plans to one another in depth contributed to the death of their technicolor romance. Assumptions kill effective communication.