Review: If You’re Looking For a Good Reason to Stan Billie Eilish, Her New Concert Doc Shall Provide
by • Monday at 12:42 pm
There’s just something super sweet about watching a young artist get to collaborate with, or even just receive a nod of approval from the artist who inspired them. This gets some attention in Ariana Grande’s recent Excuse Me, I Love You doc, with the singer getting giddy when she’s told she got the approval of her inspiration Mariah Carey. It's a tender, full-circle moment.
Billie Eilish’s The World's a Little Blurry is a two-and-a-half hour concert documentary that showcases a similar full-circle moment between fan and idol: herself and Justin Bieber. The film recounts how she quickly went from normal teenager to world famous popstar with millions of followers. Similar to Bieber’s 2011 concert doc Never Say Never, The World's a Little Blurry begins with home footage of Billie and her brother Finneas playing “Ocean Eyes” in their home, and then getting very excited when they hear it played on the radio for the first time. It then fast-forwards to Billie in 2018, greeting excited fans outside a venue.
This film was apparently catered to me, and resonated strongly since Eilish is also a longtime Belieber. In particular I loved the scene in which Eilish recites every note of Bieber’s song “Believe” and “Fall.” There’s also some footage of the family hearing JB’s verse on Eilish’s “Bad Guy (Remix)” for the first time. Eilish’s mother discusses how much their family wasn’t in the “hater camp” when it came to JB, but rather acknowledged he was a young, talented artist who worked very hard, made mistakes, and grew from them while in the spotlight. Billie was “love sick” over Justin Bieber and a passionate fan of his music from the age of 12, and her mother Maggie tears up, pointing out what a full-circle moment it is to go from Eilish crying to his songs, to hearing him sing one of Billie and Finneas’ numbers… to getting to meet him, cry in his arms, and now becoming friends, despite Eilish still being a little starstruck when he calls.
The insanely thorough concert doc gives a glimpse inside the familial, romantic, and work life behind the artist’s music. Relationships are a big focus of The World's a Little Blurry—particularly her relationship with her brother/music partner Finneas, her parents, Justin Bieber, and her ex-boyfriend Q (AKA rapper Brandon Q Adams), a relationship she never acknowledged until the documentary. Throughout the movie we get to see how wild her life is now, and some of that is related to close ties to her fans. “I don’t think of them like fans ever. They’re not my fans, they’re like... part of me,” Eilish says.
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