I don’t think anyone who knows me or has read any of my past posts will even need to read this to figure out what my thoughts on this movie are. But I’m here. You’re here. So, as the girl sitting behind me at my second viewing said right before Taylor sang “All Too Well (10 Minute Version)”, buckle in!

If you somehow haven’t heard (maybe you don’t live on planet Earth?), on October 13 Taylor Swift released Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour, a concert movie based on her Eras Tour which was based on her entire career. The movie is not a documentary, there is no behind-the-scenes footage, it is 100% a filmed version of the same show you would have seen if you attended one of the tour dates. This specific show was actually three different shows filmed and cut together from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, the last stop on the first U.S. leg of her tour. While a look into the process of creating this tour would be really, really cool (and will hopefully come in some way at a later date?), the movie serves mostly as a chance for fans who did not get to attend the concert in person to see the show or for fans who did make it there to be able to relive it (likely from a better vantage point).

Off the bat, I think it’s important to acknowledge that I personally believe it is impossible to separate a review of this movie/concert from your opinions about Taylor Swift as a person and an artist. If you’re a fan, there’s nothing not to like from The Eras Tour. But if you’re not a fan (or one of those idiots who “hates” her), this movie will probably not do anything to change that. The show is three hours of pure Taylor Swift in every aspect: a wide range of songs and musical genres, theatrical choreography, lots of glitter, talking to the audience, animated facial expressions, crying fans, and anything else that might come to mind when you hear the words “Taylor Swift”.  It’s all there. The people most likely to be influenced by the movie are those who are in the middle of the spectrum with their Taylor feelings. And that could go either way. If you love the movie, you could be pushed fully into the fandom or the intensity of it all could scare you away. 

But at the end of the day, Taylor herself and her music might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think almost everyone can agree that what she has done is impressive. Not just her ability to market her work and herself, which we should take a second to acknowledge because she’s really operating on an unmatched level right now and even just the way she and her team went about putting this movie out is trailblazing, but that’s a story for another time. But I mean what she does within the world of the show is impressive. Three and a half hours (two hours and 48 minutes in the movie) of just Taylor singing and dancing and talking and commanding a stage that takes up almost an entire football field (and looks so much bigger in the film than in person). Yes, she has a band and backup singers and dancers around her from time to time, but she is the center of attention for 100% of the show. And she does all of this without really breaking a sweat. The live shows that were filmed for this movie came at the end of a five month run of tour dates across the country doing this almost every night. And after three and half hours of performing, she’s still smiling ear to ear, jumping around, singing perfectly, and barely sweating. Seriously, someone get me the number of her personal trainer and makeup artist because genuinely how in the world??? She looks better and more energized at the end of a show than I do after a good night’s sleep (though it’s debatable if I’ve ever actually gotten one of those). All of this with the audience (and by audience I mean tens of thousands of people) in the palm of her hand the entire time. It’s truly superhuman and, even if you don’t like Taylor Swift, I hope that people can see this and at least appreciate her effort and ability as an entertainer and give credit where credit is due.

I saw Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour twice in theaters. The first time was on opening night, October 13, in a regular AMC movie theater in New York City. The second time was on Sunday night, October 15, at the Lincoln Square IMAX theater. I didn’t give it much thought going in, but the experiences were actually fairly different and I was happy to have had both (and to also get to see the movie again). Like I said before, I don’t think you can separate a review of this movie/concert from personal opinions about Taylor Swift as a person and an artist. So if I dive too deep into the machinations of the show itself, I will just end up analyzing Taylor’s entire career and each era and each song and each lyric one by one and we just don’t need to do that right now (maybe one day? That actually sounds really fun and interesting but would anyone care or want to read that? Maybe if anybody actually says “yes” I’ll consider starting that as a side project. Am I just talking to myself at this point?). Instead, I’m going to try to focus mainly on what is actually there on the screen and my experience in the theater seeing this movie. 

I’ll start with the movie itself. Obviously, I thought it was amazing, but that is mostly because the live show was amazing. It is as close to being there as you can get without actually being there. Which I think was the goal because so many people around the world were not able to see the show in person. Because I’m insane and maybe the luckiest person alive, I got to see it in person twice. I spent my first viewing of the movie paying really close attention to try to see if there was anything different or anything I hadn’t noticed about the show when I was there. But the show was the same. The only real difference in the movie was feeling like you were standing up on stage with her while she was performing. And the quality is absolutely outrageous. Better than my eyesight (with my contacts in). In some close-up shots, you could see every eyelash, every sparkle, every pore on her face. I would literally sue anyone who tried to put a camera that close to my face, but it just made her seem all the more otherworldly to look that perfect in crystal clear quality on a 60 foot IMAX screen.

If anyone doesn’t know, the show is structured by “eras” (it’s the eras tour!) which are essentially just her different albums (10 to date but really 9 are featured as eras in the show). Each era gets a distinct set design and costume (or 2 or 3) and just has a different vibe. My favorite era of the live show was “folklore” and it delivered once again in the film. The biggest surprise was the difference in the “Reputation” era. The content wasn’t any different from concert to movie, but for some reason this section of the show stood out more in movie format and hit way harder than I remember feeling like it did in person. It’s interesting how the same thing can have different effects in different formats.

The following may be “spoilers” if you care about that kind of thing so just a warning, but it did come out before the full release of the film that a few songs had been cut out of the movie setlist. This was likely to make the film more “theater friendly” as a three and half hour movie is harder to sell, but fans are definitely disappointed to lose some of their favorites, in particular, the song “Long Live”. This song was added to the setlist of the live show in July, so more than half of fans who had already attended the show (including me) did not get to see it performed live. That song does play over the credits so fans stayed in the theater to sing along for the full song, but we were still disappointed to not get to experience the live performance. There are some rumors online that when the movie comes to streaming it will be the full three and a half hour version so fingers crossed!

Another huge part of the setlist is the Acoustic Section of the show or what is better known as the “surprise songs”. Every night on tour, Taylor would perform two songs in this section, one on guitar and one on piano, and they were different every night. With such an enormous catalog of songs, you never knew what you were going to get and it became a massive deal. Some nights had universally accepted knockout combinations while others were fairly underwhelming. This was probably the most talked about aspect of the show while Taylor was out on tour. Especially in the beginning, she was trying not to repeat any songs, so every weekend before your show you would tune in to Twitter or TikTok live streams to see which songs would be crossed off the list of possibilities for your show. I still remember exactly where I was when I found out Taylor had performed some of my favorite songs without me in attendance. I almost threw my phone across the room multiple times. At the two shows I was actually in the audience for, I knew exactly the moment in the show the Acoustic Section was coming and, in the song right before it, I actually thought I might throw up. I was so anxious. The really nice part of the theater experience was that it involved none of that anxiety! We knew what shows were filmed so we already knew what the options of surprise songs would be, and then, following the first showings at the premiere, the final two songs were made public knowledge so I knew what they would be going in.

Of the six songs in this section across the three shows that were filmed, the two that made the cut would not have been my first choice. She played six unbelievable songs during these shows: “I Can See You”, “Maroon”, “Our Song”, “You Are in Love”, “Death by a Thousand Cuts”, and “You’re On Your Own, Kid”. The songs featured in the movie are “Our Song” and “You’re On Your Own, Kid”. While I like some of the other options better as songs, I think these two are actually the perfect choice for this project and Taylor doesn’t do anything without intention. “Our Song” is from her first album, titled “Taylor Swift”, but often referred to in the fandom as “Debut”. This album is the only one to not get a dedicated era in the show, so I think including it here was important to give it some representation. “You’re On Your Own, Kid” is from her most recent album “Midnights”. It’s also a track 5 if that means anything to anyone out there (if it doesn’t, it basically just means Taylor has a thing about making the 5th song on her albums particularly personal or cutting). Lyrically, “You’re On Your Own, Kid” tells the story of her entire career in a devastatingly sad and yet kind of hopeful way, basically talking about everything she’s dealt with and overcame and sacrificed to follow her dreams. For a career-spanning show that’s entire purpose is to showcase how far she’s come, these songs play perfectly into that narrative. One from her first album, the other from her last. One she wrote pre-fame for her high school talent show, the other she wrote looking back across 17 years of life and work and reflecting on the journey and how it is now all culminating in that very moment in time. Friendship bracelets and all.

While the movie is mostly Taylor performing songs and they did cut out some of her speaking to the crowd (likely also for time), her personality still manages to cut through. I have been calling her “the queen of facial expressions” because an entire show happens on her face throughout the concert. The movie is able to emphasize this so much more than the live show because you can see her face blown up on a giant screen. She rolls her eyes, she widens them, she winks, she smiles, she smirks, she glares, she mouths phrases in between lyrics. All of it adds to the over-the-top emotions she’s portraying in her stories. She’s so funny in a quirky way and she owns it, which relates to something the movie got me thinking about as well. 

There was a viral tweet last week of a video compilation of Britney Spears dancing on stage in different performances from early in her career and the caption said “this is what some of you think Taylor Swift is”. The person was essentially trying to say that Britney was a real performer and Taylor is not. But where I disagree is, that is not what we “think Taylor Swift is” or necessarily what we want her to be. She is not Britney Spears. She is not Beyoncé. She is not Lady Gaga or Dua Lipa. She doesn’t dance like them. And she doesn’t sing like Ariana Grande or Mariah Carey or Adele. I recently read a really beautifully written article (linking it here!) where the author says that Taylor dances the way we dance along to her songs in our bedrooms with our friends, singing into our hairbrushes and acting out the lyrics in theatrical ways. She has a great voice, but she sings like if a normal person had the ability to sing well. Not like the kind of supernatural vocal skill that gives you immediate chills. (Also don’t get me wrong here. I know she isn’t known for her voice, but I really do think over the years it’s only gotten better and better and at the concert I was blown away by how good she sounded and that also comes through in the movie. But you get the point). 

Beyoncé is cool: unattainable, untouchable, unflappable, can dance, can sing, can do anything with ease and minimal effort. Taylor is not cool. And she’s not trying to be. That’s not her brand. She does her basic choreography (that all her fans can easily learn and do with her), she makes funny faces, and she’s often extremely dramatic in both her lyrics and performance (which for me personally is the most relatable aspect of her personality). She even included a blooper reel over the end credits of a bunch of times where moments in the show went wrong. As polished as her persona is, it’s not perfect. She lets the cracks show. It sounds silly to say that a stunning, tall, blonde, thin, multimillionaire is relatable but, at the very least, that’s how she tries to come off. 

I don’t say that to compare the two or say that one is better than the other (Beyoncé or Taylor, a timely example since they both have extremely successful tours at the moment that the internet seems intent on pitting against each other). Actually the opposite. I think they offer very different things so even trying to compare them is pointless and there’s room to enjoy both. To me it comes down to this: there are celebrities you want to be and celebrities you want to be friends with. I would give anything to be even a quarter as cool as Beyoncé. But I would commit serious crimes to hang out with Taylor Swift for an hour. Beyoncé is cool but what would it be like to hang out with her? Is she fun? Maybe, but it’s hard to tell from what we see from her. From everything I see from Taylor Swift, I just want to be her best friend. I feel like we would have the best time gossiping at Via Carota over pasta and wine (or I hear she likes a Cosmopolitan these days). 

That was a bit of a tangent, but what I’m really trying to say is that Taylor Swift seems fun. And maybe that’s because when she’s on stage, it really looks like she’s having fun. She’s not super focused on nailing serious choreography or looking calm, cool, and collected. She’s silly and joyful and beaming and and being free and doing her thing and it really shows in the best way. Even during the more serious songs and sad songs and angry songs, she can’t help but break character for a moment or two and skip across the stage or smile. She’s having too much fun to even try to hide it. This is a person truly in her element in front of an enormous crowd screaming her name and loving every last second of it. After the concert, I described it as like a superhero powering up using the energy and love from the crowd. You can see her up there just drinking it all in and radiating it out of every pore.

The other major element of this movie is the theater-going experience. Since the moment the film was announced, people knew this would not be your typical theater experience. Fans wondered if they would be allowed to sing and dance and get involved, but were worried about theater restrictions and bothering other patrons. However, the theaters knew what they were in for and publicly said the rules would be different here. They wanted fans to treat it like they would a concert and encouraged singing, dancing, and even using cell phones and taking pictures. There was also merch, like a concert. Everyone was given a free mini poster and Eras Tour cups and popcorn buckets were for sale. 

At my opening night viewing in a regular theater, the crowd was into it but not rowdy. Many people wore Eras Tour sweatshirts and T-shirts and a few people got even more dressed up in sparkly outfits. Everyone sang along, participated in the cheers and chants, and danced in their seats. The girl sitting next to me knew almost all of the choreography of the show and performed it mostly with her arms while staying seated. We all clapped after every song like Taylor was really on stage in front of us. But this was a much more relaxed environment than I had ever experienced this show in before. Gone was all the anxiety involved with going in person: worrying about getting there, getting in, waiting in hours long lines for merch, food, bathrooms, taking pictures, how good our seats were, standing for over three hours, singing and screaming and dancing, worrying about getting home. I know I’m making it sound terrible and it obviously was not (best nights of my life!), but it definitely is involved and exhausting and took days to recover from the anxiety and adrenaline crashes along with the physical toll (I wish I was being dramatic). The movie theater experience was much cushier (I got to sit the whole time!) but still fun and still exhausting enough for me to feel it the next morning (the infamous Eras Tour Hangover, though not to its full effect). But in this more relaxed environment, I was able to really watch the movie and pay close attention to every detail.

Viewing #2 was at the Lincoln Square IMAX theater. I typically avoid IMAX movies because they legitimately make me nauseous (sorry I have severe motion sickness issues!), but this was not your typical movie. The theater was enormous which meant a bigger crowd and an obviously bigger screen. As soon as the movie started, it felt fully immersive and the stadium seating made it really feel like we were sitting in the crowd at the concert from certain angles. With the surround sound, I couldn’t tell if the claps and cheers were coming from the movie or from the crowd in the movie theater (probably both). The vibe in the theater started off the same as my first viewing, but by the time we got to the 4th era, everyone had warmed up enough that they were getting up to dance. From then on, for all the upbeat songs, people were standing and dancing in front of their seats, but also getting up to dance in the aisles and the front of the theater. Some people stood for the whole show the way they would at the concert. I know some fans had expressed worries online that crowds like this would disrupt their enjoyment of the movie, but I thought it was so much fun. It was way more of a concert-like experience where I was watching Taylor perform but I was also having fun dancing and singing and watching the crowd in the theater and not analyzing every single frame of the movie. I loved the energy and the joy and the freedom and it was really unlike any movie-going experience I’ve ever had.

There are definitely a lot of negatives to “fan culture” these days but, in this context, at the movie and at the concert, you really do feel that sense of community. It is so cheesy but when the whole theater does heart hands together during “Fearless” or cheers after the note change in “the 1”, I feel an overwhelming happiness and contentment being among my people. Yeah, we’re all absolutely insane, but we have a passion for the same thing and speak the same language and understand each other in a way that other people don’t. There really are just no words to describe and no feeling that compares to screaming the bridge of a Taylor Swift song with a crowd of people.

Obviously nothing compares to being there in person. Anxiety and all, it was truly one of (two of) the best experiences of my entire life. And while the movie comes close, it cannot capture all of that magic. It actually made me really miss being there in person (I mean I already miss it every day but even more so). But I think right now nostalgia is Taylor Swift’s most powerful tool. This movie creates nostalgia for the times we were at the concert and brings back all the memories of that wonderful experience. Watching it will always remind me of being there. But nostalgia is almost the very basis for the show itself. Moving through each era of her career also brings both Taylor and the audience back to where we were and who we were when those albums came out. 

Quick tangent, but in the article I referenced previously (linking it here again!), the author also talks about the concept of eras in the context of Taylor Swift. Essentially, she says that we all go through eras in our lives. They’re not as clearly defined as Taylor’s are through her albums, but we all have phases that we grow out of and most of us look back at who we used to be with shame. But Taylor is inviting us to reclaim those past versions of ourselves and appreciate them for what they were and what they gave us. We also don’t get to decide when we move from era to era. Life changes us without our control and, before we know it, we’ve become someone else. It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but change is scary and framing it as a new persona, a new chapter, a new era helps ease the transition. Between this tour and the Barbie movie over the summer, many people, especially women, said they felt like they were “healing their inner child”. Being able to celebrate the things we used to like or the people we used to be that we maybe once felt ashamed of is a powerful feeling. I think everyone should take the time to read the full article, but I just want to include one quote that genuinely brings me to tears:

And somewhere in Northern California, the prom queen of Section 301 of the kingdom of Swiftie Clara opens the closet door in her bedroom and touches the purple dress she was wearing the night she got engaged, but really the night she was at the Taylor Swift concert. She puts on the dress and picks up her hairbrush and puts on “Love Story,” and she sings the song that was playing when she got engaged […]
And that’s when her pink landline phone rings. She answers it, and it’s Taylor and me, conference-bombing her. We tell her that we’re sorry that she has to move on. We tell her that it’s sad that you don’t get to decide to leave your eras, that the leaving is done for you. Time only moves forward, we say into the phone. You can’t be a girl forever – they won’t let you, and we all three have to grow and move on constantly. You will always have to leave a place before you’re ready. You can go anywhere you want, we tell her in a reprise, just not home.
She cries into the phone, and we let her, me and Taylor – Taylor Swift, who sings the song of us all, who says all of this better than I ever could. I’ll tell you, I like being a woman OK, but long live being a girl.

Tangent over. Back to the movie. Seeing the Eras Tour performance in any format never gets old and never gets less impressive. I did not want it to end. After seeing it Friday night, I was genuinely so excited to see it again on Sunday. I went to the movie on Sunday night with a terrible headache and, as soon as the movie started, I was cured. Not only that, but I could have stayed in that theater for six more hours after the movie ended singing and dancing along to Taylor Swift with everyone. Every time one experience of this show ends for me, I get sad, but I try to make myself feel better by thinking “well at least I’m seeing the movie again on Sunday!” or “at least I’m going to another show next summer!” I don’t know what I’ll do when the Eras Tour experience is really all over. I guess just watch the movie at home over and over until the next tour!

P.S. I can feel my family reading this and being concerned for my mental health and wellbeing. Well don’t be. You should feel relieved! Imagine how many worse things than Taylor Swift I could feel this passionately about? 🙃

2023 Count: 26 seasons, 44 movies, 1 special