I had to see it to make the boyfriend happy and it's just horrible.
I know that it's a critic's darling, and I know it's probably going to do well at the Oscars, but I feel like that and Manchester by the Sea were two of the worst movies of the year. I get it, people like canned musicals, and mostly they're pretty bad. I watched about an hour of Hairspray and it was nearly unwatchable on television, but ratings show people like what they like, and they weren't bothered by the obvious lip synching.
The signing is clearly autotuned, there's not plot, a paper thin story, it's about Hollywood, it feels like a period piece, even though it isn't technically. Also, it relies upon dream sequences, dreams, the safe harbor of mediocre writers. After a while it was, "Oh wow, another song, that's so surprising and totally entertaining."
I feel if I wanted to see a musical I'd go see one live, because when it's live I can forgive the shortcomings of a musical because of the performance of the actors. Ryan Gossling is not a singer, nor a dancer and is a marginal actor. If we're honest it's pretty obvious that this is a pieced together performance from 20 to 50 takes of each musical number. I don't think either actor has the chops to do an honest Broadway musical.