Why is it that La La Land is a critically acclaimed movie and has got so many nominations? originally appeared on Quora, the knowledge-sharing network where compelling questions are answered by people with unique insights. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

There are several reasons why La La Land has been met with such critical acclaim, and why I believe it personally is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.

The film is, more than anything else, an absolute work of love by its writer and director Damien Chazelle. To set some context here, Hollywood today is a town that almost exclusively looks to make movies based on existing media entities drawn from books, comics, remakes of earlier movies, or plays. They also look to introduce films that leave the door open for sequels, trilogies, and so on.

Enter La La Land. An original MUSICAL by a young director, and a JAZZ musical at that without any prominent composers attached to it and with no direct path to a sequel or an existing fan-base to bootstrap interest in the film.

Chazelle pitched the film to several studios in 2009 and it eventually was picked up by Focus Features who intended to shoot it on a budget of around $1 million. Production stalled however when Focus demanded alterations to be made in the script that Chazelle felt were distinctive and pivotal to the storyline. Specifically, the studio wanted the male lead to be changed from a jazz pianist to a rock musician and the story's ending to be completely changed. Chazelle, an unproven twenty-something director at this point, refused to make these changes and project was shelved.

Fast-forward to 2014. Following the positive reception to his directing of Whiplash, Summit Entertainment agreed to take on the project while at the same time enlarging its budget by more than thirty times to $30 million.

So having established how passionate and affirmed in his convictions Chazelle was that this musical he crafted was something special, we can then look at the sources upon which he drew his inspirations for the film to better understand what makes La La Land so enthralling.

The references to classic films upon which La La Land draws are numerous. There are scenes in which Mia is showing Sebastian the Casablanca window on the set where she works and in which he then reciprocates by taking her to see Rebel Without a Cause at the Rialto followed by a trip to the Griffith Observatory.

Chazelle also mentioned specifically drawing influences for the film from Pulp Fiction (going as far as to hire Tarantino’s production designer David Wasco). Pulp Fiction was notable for depicting a uniquely crafted version of Los Angeles that few other films have ever successfully emulated and it’s a feat that’s also achieved with great success in La La Land.

However, the distinction here is that while La La Land is able to draw from these older films a nostalgic sense, it manages to at the same time retain a modern feeling in a way that keeps each scene and story arc feeling fresh and new. For example, the dance numbers aren’t immaculately planned to perfection with the level of precision you would have expected to see from a film staring Gene Kelly or Donald O'Connor. Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (and by extension Mia and Sebastian) are grounded yet flawed characters. This translates into imperfect musical numbers and exciting, if at times unpolished, dance numbers which give the film a feeling of uniqueness.

La La Land is a film that is full of feeling, passion, and melancholy. It’s reminiscent of a different time and it’s a film that is easy to lose yourself in. I walked out of the theater after watching it with a feeling I’ve never experienced as the result of watching a film, and I still can’t stop thinking about the movie a week later.

This question originally appeared on Quora. More questions on Quora:

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