Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour (2023)
SHOULD I SEE IT?
YES
The pop culture event of 2023 is now on the big screen.
Even casual or passive Taylor Swift fans will be swept up in the grandeur and showmanship that she possesses. Don’t let the stories of singing and audience participation dissuade you. Chances are you’ll be tapping your feet and singing right along with everyone else at some point during the film.
Without question this is one of the greatest concert films ever made. Is it the greatest? Time will tell, but in the moment - it could be.
NO
Honestly, if you are not a fan of Taylor Swift, you aren’t going to be seeing this.
People may scoff at the 168-minute running time, but it cuts five songs from the live show, and we binge watch television shows and are looking forward to a 206 minute Martin Scorsese film later this month. Pick your battles.
In your wildest dreams, you know all too well that you are simply not ready for it. Shake it off, go in style, perhaps wear a cardigan, and honestly - you need to calm down and avoid being the anti-hero among your friends who makes people say to themselves this is why we can’t have nice things.
OUR REVIEW
For almost two decades (17 years to be exact and across 10 albums), Taylor Swift has consistently defied her fiercest of critics. Initially branded as a teen country star who first sang about Tim McGraw making her most favorite song, she was dismissed by most in the industry, even when her debut self-titled album sold nearly 6 million copies.
With 2008’s “Fearless,” she turned heads by incorporating contemporary music into her blending of country sounds, shocking many when she won her first of three Grammys for Album of the Year. As she moved into more mature themes within her confessional songwriting, and specifically about relationships that had ended, people branded her as someone who dates merely to develop content for her next project. A criticism, in fact, she still hears to this day. However, what Swift has proven through all her eras, through her evolution from country songwriter to the biggest pop star in the world is that she will outwork, out-think, and out-perform everyone. Her talent seems to only grow, culminating, at this point, in her career-defining Eras Tour.
Within five minutes of watching Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, the spectacular concert film that captures footage from the final three shows of her North American tour dates at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles this past August, you cannot help but feel her power. She’s midway through “Cruel Summer,” a beloved 2019 song from her “Lover” album, which became a Top 5 hit this year when fans championed it so relentlessly on social media that her label, Republic Records, decided to officially release it as a single. The crowd knows every word of course, but she is full-voiced, commanding the “T”-shaped digital stage with purpose, and already has every audience member in the palm of her hand.
And yet, where countless musicians appear to take a moment like this for granted or fail to truly appreciate the moments they are creating, this connection between artist and audience is fascinating and rather heartwarming. Director Sam Wrench may have cameras all over the stadium, but his ability to capture genuine moments of appreciation from the artist to her devoted “Swifties” is something that gets lost when seeing the show live in the stadium.
Having caught The Eras Tour in person at Lumen Field in Seattle this past July, it was a stunning spectacle. Swift performs 44 or 45 songs, for three hours and 15-20 minutes, with no intermission and only the slightest of pauses to change costumes between era transitions. There isn’t a bottle of water anywhere on stage. She seldom relies on a backing track, singing probably 90% of her vocals live, a fact proven by Wrench’s fantastic sound mixing team, who clearly let you hear Swift’s unwavering vocal performance in the film. Swift hits every cue, every mark, every vocal run. She can pivot from guitar to piano to powerhouse pop star in a moment’s notice and make it feel authentic. While a blooper reel over the end credits shows you that not everything went perfectly with what “Swifties” have jokingly called “The Errors Tour” on social media, the performance I saw in person, and what is captured here on film, is about as close to perfect as one can get.
In our screening, a guy jumped up during the “Cruel Summer” chorus and never sat down. When “Lover” was performed, a couple next to him got up and slow-danced together. By about the 30 minute mark, a number of moviegoers had assembled together down near the front of the screen and were singing and dancing and connecting with those who had joined them from around the theater. Folks can mock that all you want I suppose, but that was pretty incredible to witness. And rather wonderful.
Largely this is because Wrench understands the connection Swift has with her audience, and in turn the connection her fans have with her and her music. And while we do get the proverbial cutaways to fans singing or crying in the stands, he doesn’t browbeat us with those moments. Instead, we not only see the scope of what Swift has put together for this show, in awe of the already Hall of Fame career and legacy she has created, but also we get a sense that even in her wildest dreams (pun partially intended Swifties), she never could have envisioned this happening to her when she released her first album all the way back in 2006.
As a film, Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is a nearly flawless document of the biggest star in the world embracing the peak of her success. Perhaps lost in all the theatricality and showmanship on display for those casual or passive fans of Taylor Swift is that, folks, she is really, really good at the making music part of the gig.
Her songs are masterfully constructed, and as she thanks the SoFi audience during her “Acoustic Set” of two surprise songs she plays at each show, she shares that her fans are the ones that have allowed her to explore genres and take risks and explore her creativity. Sweeping ballads, hip-hop influenced dance songs, country songs, confessional stories that feel both personal and relatable, poetic, introspective lyrics, and the ability to write haunting melodies and rebrand herself during the pandemic with her alternative/folk albums “folklore” and “evermore” prove that Swift is a storyteller at heart; one who eventually, in time, will draw everyone in to hear what she has to say.
As she concludes with “Karma,” from her latest album “Midnights,” Swift and her team of dancers and backup singers join her, clasp hands, and take a final bow. Fireworks explode outside the stadium and everyone soaks in the adulation. What they are left is the experience that Swift somehow inexplicably creates both in person and now through film - that of a singer who can make 75,000 people, or a theater of 100 or so, feel like she is singing directly to them while not leaving anyone feeling left out of a shared communal experience.
CAST & CREW
Starring: Taylor Swift
Director: Sam Wrench
Release Date: October 13, 2023
AMC Theatres Distribution