Tay­lor Swift: The Eras Tour review – the sto­ry of a lifetime

“She is the light that gives mean­ing to each to all our lives [sic].” Paul Schrader’s 2018 praise for Tay­lor Swift was more gush­ing than he has ever been for Felli­ni or Welles. His qua­si-reli­gious words reflect the audi­ence of 70,000 on screen at SoFi Sta­di­um in Ingle­wood, Cal­i­for­nia, and off in cin­e­mas across the globe. As a parade of pas­tel but­ter­flies prom­e­nade through the crowd, they reveal Swift out of noth­ing­ness to rap­tur­ous screams and applause.

Tay­lor Swift: The Eras Tour is for the Swifties, make no mis­take. Whether they have been here from her Nashville begin­nings or only joined the cult dur­ing her dizzy­ing pan­dem­ic pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, it is a con­cert film Tay­lor-made for fans. It’s vocalised by Swift in her speech, and con­veyed by heart­stop­ping winks and side­ways glances to cam­era. Direc­tor Sam Wrench and cin­e­matog­ra­ph­er Brett Turn­ball car­ry this com­mu­nion with ease, often let­ting a close-up fall to a teary-eyed onlook­er. We watch from every angle, from the ver­ti­go-induc­ing cheap seats to impos­si­ble close­ness on stage. Swift is always in com­mand, but she has no diva-like aloof­ness. Her per­for­mance is of inti­ma­cy and friend­ship – it’s an illu­sion, but it’s a very con­vinc­ing one.

The con­cert itself, trimmed for the film with fan favourites ​‘The Archer’ and ​‘cardi­gan’ amongst the casu­al­ties of the cut­ting room floor, is aston­ish­ing. The eras of Swift, defined by her album titles, are pre­sent­ed out of chronol­o­gy mak­ing for some breath­tak­ing tonal shifts. She begins with the hazy fan­tasies of Lover (2019) before turn­ing back the clock with a gold­en Charleston aes­thet­ic for her break­through album Fear­less (2008). The flail­ing tas­sels give way to cot­tagecore cosi­ness of ever­more (2020), seat­ed alone at a moss-cov­ered piano for a play­ful ren­di­tion of ​‘cham­pagne prob­lems’, before a giant ser­pent pulls up the rug to throw her back into her man­ic exis­ten­tial cri­sis of Rep­u­ta­tion (2017).

There’s a know­ing reflex­iv­i­ty, as has come through her re-record­ings of each album with the ben­e­fit of matu­ri­ty. Swift has talked about the phase she was going through with Rep­u­ta­tion in Lana Wilson’s beau­ti­ful doc­u­men­tary Miss Amer­i­cana, and the stag­ing and cam­er­a­work show this – she runs through a hall-of-mir­rors, chan­nelling Rita Hay­worth in The Lady From Shang­hai, past dancers reflect­ing her past lives back at her like giant angry Bar­bi­es. One breaks free – Swift as a lilac Cin­derel­la singing ​‘Enchant­ed’ from Speak Now (2010), her dancers now per­form­ing a bal­let blanc around her.

Mandy Moore reflects each era in her chore­og­ra­phy, mov­ing from those clas­si­cal lines to Bob Fos­se-inspired num­bers for ​‘22’ from Red (2012) and ​‘Vig­i­lante Shit’ from Mid­nights (2022). Swift indulges her pen­chant for the Gild­ed Age in ​‘The Last Great Amer­i­can Dynasty’, staged like a ball from The Age of Inno­cence by Edith Whar­ton, before burn­ing down her Long Pond cab­in as 1989 (2014) bursts into life. The go-for-broke sen­so­ry over­whelm of songs like ​‘Blank Space’ and ​‘Shake It Off’ are per­fect­ly off­set by the ten­der­ness of her ear­ly num­bers or the 10-minute ver­sion of ​‘All Too Well’. Swift reminds us that she’s on her own, and she always has been.

The Eras Tour is the sto­ry of a life­time, and while Swift main­tains her immac­u­late pos­ture, we see her trans­form over the course of almost three hours. Her hair gets wilder, her make­up starts to smudge, and there’s a sense that she is ready to col­lapse at the end. It is pro­found­ly mov­ing to see some­one be so open with her audi­ence, the mean­ing of her lyrics tak­ing on new res­o­nance since first writ­ing them. And we were there, we remem­ber it all.

Lit­tle White Lies is com­mit­ted to cham­pi­oning great movies and the tal­ent­ed peo­ple who make them.

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