Jonah Naplan   October 15, 2023

It’s not just that I’m a fan of Taylor Swift. It’s that director Sam Wrench has organized a striking visual potluck so dense with detail you’ll find yourself rubbing your eyes with exhaustion when it’s all over. Jubilant, jolly, and all things fabulous, “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” is the queen’s magnum opus, a multitude of all her most iconic work to put right at the top of her resume, with a perfect CV reference in the thunderous audience she’s surrounded herself with. Having hit theaters this past Friday the 13th, the film unites Swifties and reluctant parents and husbands alike at the cinema—those who spent a fortune on tickets to the actual concert and now want to relive the incredible experience, people who weren’t so fortunate with finding tickets but are happy to embrace this unique opportunity, and those with little distinct knowledge of the singer whatsoever but are willing to give her a try. You might find that the most skeptical moviegoers will leave the most delighted, given that the film provides hardcore Swifties everything they could ever want, and the cynics things they never expected. It’s a slice of pure joy.

So, what’s the plot? There isn’t one. Not unless you consider the storytelling metaphors in Ms. Swift’s various “eras” as narrative corners. But even then, the beats of her life are all jumbled up and out of order (excerpts from Swift’s very first album, simply titled Taylor Swift, released in 2006, have been nestled between her 1989 and Midnights medleys), and in spite of film critics everywhere (ta da!), it exists to not be concrete enough to review as a normal film. The events of the movie can’t have any inherent mystery to them because they’re merely a recounting of something that has already happened multiple times and continues to go on as we speak that we’re not any more familiar with now than we were years before its newest restoration was even thought of. That the intrigue card gets played organically instead of forcedly is the most humble strength in a film that is otherwise very ostentatious and extravagant.

The movie, shot with much aesthetic vigor, captures 40 of Taylor Swift’s most show-stopping bangers as performed by the artist herself between three summer nights at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Those who were lucky enough to have purchased tickets to one of her concerts can affirm how accurate watching the movie is to sitting in the packed football field, trading friendship bracelets with fellow Swifties, hollering in excitement when the first notes of a favorite song come on, and singing (or screaming, for that matter) along with the lyrics to a popular tune. The movie isolates the crowded concert experience so well that we’re disappointed to find it doesn’t climax with an additional three-hour montage of waiting to get your damn car out of the parking garage.

It runs an impressive 168 minutes. And I’d guess that at least 160 of those are concerned exclusively with singing and dancing. The boisterous choreography for the tour was mapped out by Colorado native Mandy Moore, wedded to an impossibly sexy costume design credited by Taylor to Versace, Elie Saab, Roberto Cavalli, Zuhair Murad, Alberta Ferretti, Oscar de la Renta and Christian Louboutin. As the movie moves into its final hour, it’s the finer details you notice most; Taylor’s subtle costume changes, the way the flashing stage lights complement the point-perfect editing by Dom Whitworth, what the camera chooses to highlight when it’s not focusing on Ms. Swift’s gyrating hips. At least five times every “era,” the focus cuts to the enthusiastic, waving and screaming fans, who, perhaps unbeknownst to some of them, are featured lovingly on the big screen in all emotional states, the better chunk of which revolve around a bittersweet triumph that they’re finally being recognized by their icon in one way or another. Most look happy, their excitement evident in their hopeful grins that spread ear to ear, but that jovial spirit is matched with near constant tears of joy—some may be of pure gladness to be surrounded by their fellow Swiftie brethren, others may have a hidden meaning lurking underneath; the relief that amidst relentless hardships, they’re finally here, in the same room as their goddess upon which they worship, after years of saving enough money to be present in this very moment.

Half of Taylor’s songs seem to be powered not by her, but by the booming fans who cling on to every last word as if their lives depend on it. Her impact floats beyond the lucky few in the stadium to those watching in their neighborhood theater. My crowd was a rowdy bunch—the conclusion of each era was accompanied by a raucous appraisal, and the occasional hit single mooted a similar response. The same applause rings out for the slammers—“Shake It Off,” “Anti-Hero,” “...Ready For It?,” etc—as it does the somber ballads—namely Taylor’s 10-minute melodrama “All Too Well” and “You’re on Your Own, Kid.” The set designs by Ethan Tobman, as they pertain to each number, are uncanny and luscious, providing the songs with half of the oomph they wouldn’t otherwise have.

Swift puts on a powerhouse performance, demonstrating her refined ability to sing and dance simultaneously without breaking a sweat, a skill most high school show choirs would kill to have more of. She rarely leaves the spotlight for almost three straight hours, and there’s seldom a shot that doesn’t linger on her flashy bodily movements. Taylor always seems perfectly comfortable up on stage, basking in the light of the people’s colossus. And whether she’s secretly intimidated by that lucrative image or owns up to it—living in her zone as she always has—she’s dancing to her own music with even more passion than her fanbase, as if she, too, is discovering these songs for the very first time and realizes they’re actually quite catchy. Swift seems far more vulnerable up on stage than most artists who’ve been doing this for longer and in turn have generated a greater ego; she opens herself up to the audience in ways that’d make her more gullible for criticism, pausing in between eras, discussing what they mean, how they mean it, and why we should take a moment to consider her stories and care. She’s equally as grateful for the audience participation as she is the fact that they even showed up in the first place to see her strut her stuff.

What she’s always done throughout her career is eschew conventional notions of showmanship by completely embracing her loving fans instead of acting like she’s above them or that she’s only “tickled” by their adoration. The easy explanation would be that her clique has grown so large and so dedicated that it’s become impossible to ignore, but I’d suspect (and I hope) that there’s better, more wholesome logic that draws from her universal appeal—consider the videos of novice YouTubers thanking their viewers for ten subscribers. Swift has more than ten; she has millions who tune into her work, and, of course, the Eras Tour itself is projected to gross an estimated $5.7 billion, already the most successful tour in history, let alone that by a female artist. It has come out that through the goodness of her heart, Swift donated exorbitant sums to local food banks in each major city she visited, and you can feel her pleasure to be experiencing new places, doing what she loves, sharing her music with hundreds of thousands all over the country.

But what this concert film captures is something else entirely, and that’s what’s so fascinating about it. Its entropic tendencies come with charm, and Swift smiles her way through all of it, dazzling the jumbotrons in various power stances and important poses. She’s surrounded by her posse of back-up dancers who all perfectly match her infectious energy, employing what I’d imagine a bunch of Gucci models performing a Times Square street show would look like. The spotlight doesn’t linger on any one of them, deriving power from the image of the group collectively moving together. “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” works, most of all, because of the reactions it elicits from audiences both in and outside of the film. The final hour of my screening saw a crowd of excited young girls gathering at the front of the theater, jumping up and down to the beat during its final sections. And a woman in my row, sitting a couple seats away, I’m confident to claim is the single biggest Swiftie in the entire world, and you cannot change my mind. The only thing that could have possibly amped up my theater even more was if Taylor herself walked in, which, of course, actually happened during a couple lucky screenings of the movie in its opening weekend.

“Lady, sit down!” shouted an aggravated man two rows behind me midway through the screening. She didn’t sit down; in fact, she jumped up even higher at the beat drop of “You Belong With Me” from Fearless. Which got me to thinking: should “Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour” even be, in any way, watched as a film, when it doesn’t take a genius to know it’s so obviously a catalyst for this dedicated fanbase to pull on a few friendship bracelets, gather up with friends, and go cheer on their favorite pop queen at their local theater? It can’t be written about the same way as a normal movie, so should it even be viewed as one? The theater experience is essential for this type of event, but encountering ecstatic Swifties along the way is guaranteed no matter how rural your arthouse cinema is. And even then, getting a private screening to occupy with your solemn friends, avoiding the obnoxious fans it arouses, in order to dissect what it is as a piece of film will inevitably turn out erroneous. This is what it is; a vehicle to unite fans in this harsh world, letting them sing and dance for three hours straight to forget about the problems of reality. And there’s something very beautiful about what it does to lift spirits, boost the theater industry, and portray how monumental, both in culture and in technology, the Eras Tour actually is.

I return back to the notion that Swifties will get everything they want. They will, and that’s why it gets four stars—a movie can only be graded on how well it accomplishes the goals it appears to have set for itself. But it’s also one stacked with signs, allusions, references, pay-offs, and, of course, enough emotion to satisfy the Hallmark channel. All of this is somehow achieved in a concert film, skyrocketing to a territory where nothing else matters except us, the proscenium, and Taylor.

Now playing in theaters.