Pop star Billie Eilish collaborates with film director James Cameron to shoot a 3D record of her Hit Me Hard And Soft tour in 2025.
Where once music divas became film actors, it is now de rigueur for the biggest stars to direct: less Diana Ross and more Barbra Streisand. In recent years, Beyoncé and Taylor Swift shaped their own music for the screen, maintaining control of their creative vision. Two-time Oscar-winner Billie Eilish now follows, but does something different for her third concert movie. While there’s a clear sense here that she has a guiding hand, she has also recruited James Cameron as co-director, giving this a unique mix of intimacy and clear-eyed distance.
Filmed over four nights, mostly in Manchester, this does a superb job of capturing Eilish’s skills as a performer, running the gamut from rabble-rouser to cult leader to angelic preacher. She’s a fascinating figure, dressed like early Eminem and running around the stage like the Beastie Boys in the ’90s, but capable of breaking hearts like Adele. You don’t have to know the set-list well for this to make you reflect on her idiosyncratic energy and the unusual place she has carved out in the pop landscape. As she conducts the crowd like a maestro, it’s obvious that she’s speaking to something necessary, and bringing outsiders into her orbit by rejecting the usual pop posing.
Cameron includes only a few minutes of behind-the-scenes interview and scene-setting with her, but he chooses his moments well.
Cameron includes only a few minutes of behind-the-scenes interview and scene-setting with her (for more on Eilish’s backstory, check out 2021 doc The World’s A Little Blurry), but he chooses his moments well. It’s genuinely interesting to see how she reaches the stage, what shaped her performance choices and why some very good dogs play a key role. He also marshals his battalion of cameras as expertly as you’d expect, capturing all the dazzling light and fire effects in a way that justifies the 3D surcharge. But importantly, he doesn’t neglect Eilish herself or the fans in his pursuit of a pretty image.
This is not a revelatory, in-depth documentary about Eilish as an artist, no Shut Up & Sing or Metallica: Some Kind Of Monster. But it’s a well-crafted concert film with just enough insight to satisfy. There’s also something quite touching in Cameron’s constant deference to his co-director and her vision for the work. If the famously fiery Cameron can accept co-billing with a pop star because he sees a talent worthy of respect, think what the rest of us have to learn from this Gen Z iconoclast.
Who was it made for? Everyone. You don’t have to be a diehard Eilish fan to appreciate the artistry in music, performance and filmmaking here.
