“And they lived happily ever after.”

This is arguably the signature closing line of every fairytale movie. 

The princess gets her Prince Charming, and they ride off into the sunset on their carriage. As an innocent little girl watching Disney princess movies like “Cinderella,” I truly believed in a happily ever after. I believed love was supposed to be perfect, destined and everlasting.

Then, I watched “La La Land.”

“La La Land” is a 2016 film written and directed by Damien Chazelle, starring Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. IMDb lists the film’s genre as a “romantic comedy” and “pop musical.”

Sure, there’s some singing and dancing … but a comedy? No. It’s all wrong. 

For plot context, as IMDb puts it, pianist Sebastian and actress Mia attempt to stay together while trying to “make it” in their respective careers, but when their ambitions pull them in different directions, their love struggles to survive. 

I hate to spoil it, but Seb and Mia don’t end up together. 

The two fall in love. They dream big, they fight, they sacrifice and ultimately, they decide to go their separate ways to pursue their own dreams. Mia moves to Paris to progress her acting career, and Seb stays in Los Angeles to open his jazz club. 

Years later, Mia, a successful actress, walks into a jazz club with her husband, owned by none other than Seb himself. 

Their eyes meet. Time stops. “Welcome to Seb’s,” he says.

The film then shows us not flashbacks of the couple, but a glimpse of what their life could’ve been. 

A fantasy sequence is displayed where Seb and Mia live out a perfect, glittering life together where their careers coincide. The colors are bright, and the music is loud as the two dance away under the Eiffel Tower, buy their first house and welcome their first child. 

Saddest of all, they go to Seb’s together, only for Mia to snap out of her fantasy and see Seb playing the piano in front of her, not sitting beside her. 

Reality hits like a punch to the gut: The two pursued their dreams, just not together.

The horror is there is no “happily ever after” waiting at the end of every story. The harsh truth and reality of the “La La Land” ending is what’s scary. 

When we think of typical horror movies, ghosts, bloody knives and haunted houses come to mind. But I believe the word “horror” exists on a spectrum. 

On one side lies the jump scare — the Halloween kind. On the other lies the more psychological kind — the eye-stinging, heart-sinking, pit-in-your-stomach kind. 

“La La Land” is a psychological horror movie.

Seb and Mia’s fate could happen to anyone. In fact, many people have experienced similar endings, where they love someone deeply but are forced to let them go. 

Vampires and witches aren’t real, but this is. “La La Land” isn’t scary because it’s otherworldly. It’s scary because it’s familiar, relatable and possible. 

Chazelle takes the childhood fantasy of “happily ever after” and destroys it, piece by piece. He exposes the unsettling truth that dreams can’t always coexist with relationships. Sometimes, love is placed inside an hourglass, the sand seeping through the gap with every passing day. 

The ending of “La La Land” is anything but a relief. We’re not only scared of our own lives turning out in a similar way, but we also feel disturbance and confusion. If Seb and Mia were so meant to be, then why were they not meant to last? 

What “La La Land” teaches us, however, is that a happy ending may not physically include the person you love. Instead, it includes the ghost of them. 

Even though Seb and Mia don’t end up together, their paths still cross. Without each other’s belief and encouragement in the other, the two would have never found success within their passions. The spark from Seb and Mia’s love built the other up and brought them apart. 

It’s tragic, yes, but also profoundly human. 

Not every person who impacts your life is meant to stay forever. Their time may be temporary, but their impact is permanent. 

This Halloween, I think I’ll opt out of watching “The Conjuring” and experience the real terror of “La La Land” instead. And I will certainly be bawling my eyes out. 

Being the hopeless romantic that I am, I secretly hope Seb and Mia will find their way back to each other. But perhaps that would be too much of a fairytale ending. 

“La La Land” presents to us a realistic version of a fairytale, where Prince Charming only stays for a chapter, not the whole book.