★★★★★
There was a debate over the summer about etiquette inside cinemas, with claims that audiences watching Barbie and Oppenheimer had forgotten how to behave. Let us hope that those cinephiles complaining about viewers checking their phones and talking throughout the movie do not stumble into screenings of Taylor Swift’s new concert film, lest they be outraged by what they find.
The audience watching the premiere of the pop superstar’s film in Los Angeles screamed, sang and danced from start to finish, with some teenage girls barely taking their seats during the near three-hour runtime.
Swift attended the premiere of her new film in Los Angeles
Perhaps the screening is not representative — after all Swift herself sat in a middle row, a few seats away from Adam Sandler and other celebrity guests — but knowing her fans’ fervour it is likely cinemas around the world will soon be turned into mini raves.
And this is no ordinary concert film. The Eras Tour is set to become the highest-grossing tour of all time and the movie is already breaking records of its own. It surpassed $100 million in global ticket sales a week before release. The film more than justifies the hype and rather than a rushed cash-in, Swift has gifted her fans a spectacular, lovingly crafted movie that somehow captures everything great about the live show.
The bridge to Cruel Summer, the second song of the concert, was sung with as much enthusiasm in the cinema as it was in the stadium both times I saw it live. All Too Well — the ten-minute ballad beloved by Swift’s fan base — loses none of its emotional heft in the transfer from the arena to the Imax screen. August, a track about a teenage love triangle from the Folklore album, provoked a singalong in the cinema with one teenage girl appearing on the verge of tears.
The new film comes remarkably close to replicating the experience of sharing a stadium with 80,000 fans
At times it was difficult to work out whether the cheering was from the cinema’s sound system or the audience. Many appeared to have memorised Swift’s choreography and danced along in near-perfect synchronicity with the singer. Shake It Off, from the 2014 album 1989, had entire rows of the audience dancing.
There are even some aspects of the film, which uses footage from performances in Los Angeles in August, that beat the live experience.
With a runtime of about two hours and 45 minutes, it is leaner than the concert. We no longer have to wait for Swift’s costume changes; in the movie she appears in a new outfit instantaneously. And the camera brings the audience onto the stage with Swift, providing a close-up as she works her way through more than 40 songs from ten studio albums and 17 years of music. From the delight on her face it is clear that Swift loves being on stage and the unique bond she shares with her fans.
The Eras Tour film feels like a present to those fans — the ones who have packed into arenas over the last seven months and those who were unable to get their hands on tickets. While a trip to the cinema cannot perfectly replicate the experience of sharing a stadium with 80,000 screaming fans, Swift’s movie comes remarkably close.
Pop music is a unipolar world. There is Taylor Swift and then everyone else. With the triumphant arrival of The Eras Tour film, which will be followed at the end of the month by a re-recorded version of 1989, that gap is only likely to grow.
Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is out in the UK on October 13
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