Unpopular opinion: "La La Land just didn't do it for me."

Spoiler alert: If you haven’t seen La La Land yet, stop reading. Now.

I’ve long suspected that I’m broken; that there’s a part of me missing.

It’s the bit that lets you believe in fairy tale romances and makes your foot tap unwittingly during musical theatre performances.

Anyway, I just don’t have it. So naturally, last night I saw La La Land.

So far, the big screen musical starring Hollywood’s biggest charmers Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling is almost universally liked.

Only two weeks into the year, Damien Chazelle’s film is already drowning in awards and five star reviews. It holds a 93% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Critics have hailed it as a "masterpiece" and a "magical love letter to the golden age of Hollywood". Undoubtedly, it's both.

I just... Look. I wasn't that into it?

From the opening scene when a bunch of drivers burst into song on a bumper-to-bumper Los Angeles freeway, I knew I was going to struggle to suspend my disbelief — but that wasn't even my biggest problem watching this film.

In fact, I actually got pretty into all the singing and dancing by the end.

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It was the characters. Not the actors, they were utterly delightful, but the characters, or rather: their aspirations.

Mia (Stone) is a down-and-out actress working a menial job hoping for her BIG BREAK.

Sebastian (Gosling) is a down-and-out jazz enthusiast wasting his talent for tinkering on the piano by being too stubborn to realise that no one likes jazz. Seriously, no one likes jazz, mate.

Anyway, they "meet cute" and proceed to court one another adorably.

For her part, Stone is so hilarious you can easily forgive her for being a terrible tap dancer.

Likewise, Gosling is so suave you almost forget Seb is a white, wannabe jazz musician. No mean feat.

BUT — sorry, I'm really sorry — here's the thing: their dreams just ring a little... hollow?

And as hard as I tried, I couldn't make myself care about either of them.

No part of me was invested in Mia's one-woman play about her transition from small town life to the painted world of Hollywood. I cared even less when it finally landed her her BIG BREAK in Paris.

And when Sebastian looked like giving up on his dream to open a jazz bar named 'Chicken On A Stick', I was honestly pretty relieved for him.

I know the golden age of Hollywood is all about decadence and romance and over-the-top musicality, but it was also wasteful. And vacuous. And often truly, truly terrible for women.

In La La Land the measure of Mia's success is that she gets to be a movie star with a boring husband, a gaudy mansion and free frappuccinos at her local coffee chain. I mean really, is that the whole dream?

Obviously, a large part of classic cinema's appeal is its ability to transport you some place better, but as comforting as nostalgia might be for some, glossing over gritty realities just doesn't do it for me.

In 2017, while we're hurtling towards total climate wipe-out and mere days out from a Trump presidency, I have no desire to escape into a crass Hollywood fantasy, no matter how flawless it looks on the silver screen.

Or, you know, maybe I do just hate musicals. It could definitely be that.