It was only seven months ago that Taylor Swift first stepped onto the Eras Tour stage. In the time since, she has released an album and teased two others, defined the trend cycle with her cheers for the Kansas City Chiefs and sashayed her way through the cultural phenomenon estimated to become the highest grossing tour in music history.
Shot over three days in August at Inglewood's SoFi Stadium and released Oct. 13, Swift’s favorite number, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” stands as a nearly three-hour concert documentary, bringing the tour experience to those not able to navigate the morass of attaining tickets and attending in person.
And what an experience it is. From the first note, Swift commands the stage and captures the screen. Her charisma is undeniable, conveyed through coy winks at the camera and confident struts across the set. In close-ups, she is dazzling, though other times director Sam Wrench favors wide, kinetic and fast-cutting shots that are sometimes disconcerting. Despite this, the film is able to do the show and its star justice, a feat that is all the more impressive when considering the magnitude of the tour and the expectations that accompanied it.
From bedazzled business casual during “The Man” to Victorian finery during “the last great american dynasty” to fire-engine red leather during “22,” the costumes worn by Swift and her dancers are astonishing. The ease with which Swift transitions from outfit to outfit — from era to era — is truly an attestation to her stardom.
She shifts flawlessly between flashy pop performances and gut-wrenching breakup ballads, donning a long robe over her glittery bodysuit as she moves from “I Knew You Were Trouble” to “All Too Well (10 Minute Version),” all the while maintaining her poise and power as a performer.
Over the course of the tour, Swift has performed two acoustic “surprise songs” at each show, ensuring each experience is unique and giving fans a chance to engage with more of her extensive discography than the 44 tracks highlighted in the show itself. The film, too, includes two acoustic tracks — “Our Song” and “You’re On Your Own, Kid,” which serve as bookends for both Swift’s eras and her experiences.
The former, from Swift’s eponymous debut album, was written during high school about the joys of young romance, while the latter, coming off her newest studio album “Midnights,” was crafted as a more melancholy reflection on the highs and lows of life, love and coming of age in the spotlight.
Both tracks chronicle her growth as an artist and an individual — it is only fitting, therefore, that they should be the two preserved in this film, a dialogue across ten albums that shows how she has evolved, yet also remained the same.
Throughout her seventeen years in the music industry, Swift has been many things — a country singer, a pop star, a songwriting genius and a folk legend. She is a genre defying, generation defining artist who knows exactly who she is.
In her songs, she serves as both the protagonist and the narrator, just as through this musical autobiography she takes us through her complicated and contradictory narrative as a public figure. The Eras tour, she confesses during the film, has “meant more to [her] than anything [she’s] ever done or been a part of in [her] life," and that emotion is conveyed on screen as sharply as her winged eyeliner.
As concert movies go, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” is a great achievement, but perhaps an even more significant one is the film’s impact on the cinematic landscape. Its release marks a massive and unexpected victory for movie theaters, who were otherwise suffering through a particularly desolate fall due to the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes and the postponement of many eagerly anticipated releases.
Moviegoers, too, emerge victorious from the film, able to live and relive the songs and moments that, regardless of personal relationships to Swift or her discography, are overflowing with joy and energy.
In the leadup to the bridge of “Don’t Blame Me,” the on-screen audience shouted, “Take us to church, Taylor!” And indeed, for many people, Swiftie is a religion and Taylor a deity. This film is for those people, crafted as a form of cathartic celebration and collective effervescence in which all can partake.
In the theater, and in the crowds on screen, there were parents and children, middle school and college students, Swifties and non-Swifties and everything in between, all of whom were held, rapt, for the entirety of the three hours. So call it what you want, but certainly don’t call it boring.
“Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour,” is playing in AMC theaters worldwide through November.
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