Mark Reviews Movies: BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD'S A LITTLE BLURRY

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Review by Mark Dujsik | February 25, 2021

Billie Eilish is unique as a singer, artist, and public persona, so the most surprising takeaway of R.J. Cutler's documentary about the music star is how perfectly ordinary she is, despite her extraordinary talent and rise to fame. Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry follows the singer on tour, at home, and in the process of creating the multi-chart-topping, award-winning album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?—all of which was written and recorded on her tour and at her home.

We definitely don't expect how many scenes there are of Eilish and her family, including her brother/record producer/back-up singer Finneas O'Connell (known simply as Finneas professionally), at their home in a neighborhood of Los Angeles. The home life of celebrities is often overlooked or bypassed in such documentaries, for privacy concerns, obviously, and because the allure of seeing the behind-the-scenes activities of the stars is in seeing the backstage preparations/drama/procedures/etc.

There's some of that here, of course. There has to be, but the appeal of those sections in this film is in how unprepared, overwhelmed, and amused Eilish is by some of these moments. She's a star, even before her first studio album is released, having risen to unexpected fame by releasing songs online—much in the way her idol, celebrity crush, and, to her absolute shock, eventual friend Justin Bieber had about a decade prior. That doesn't mean she knows or is ready for all of the difficulties and perks that come from fame.

Backstage at Coachella Festival in 2019, singer Katy Perry wants to meet Eilish, offer some support, encourage the teenage singer to call if she ever needs to talk about fame, and introduce her to Perry's fiancé, who's a big fan. It's not until later, after having it explained to her by her family, that the big fan is actor Orlando Bloom, who made quite an impression on her younger self. "If 9-year-old me," she starts and doesn't finish when she meets Bloom for the second time, while enjoying a big, long hug from the actor.

Cutler seemingly has been granted unfettered access to Eilish's personal and professional lives for this documentary. It's a move that might seem questionable, given her age (She turns 18 a few weeks after the album is nominated for multiple Grammys) and the newness of her celebrity status, but after watching the film, those questions fade. At the start of the documentary, one might admire Eilish's vocal talents—breathy but richly melodic—and respect the quality of the music she makes—even if it's only from the hit song "Bad Guy." By the end, we come to admire and respect her as a person, too.

There's the fact of her music, as well as its creation, for one thing. All of those songs, written before the debut album and for it, were written by Eilish and Finneas in the house, in hotel rooms on the road, and sitting in the tour bus outside a venue. They were mostly recorded in the brother's bedroom at home. It's an impressive feat, and it's even more impressive that the fame Eilish has achieved at the start of the documentary hasn't changed that process.

We get the sense that it couldn't. Music has been in the lives of these two from the start, as their parents raised them to play various instruments (for example, the piano and the ukulele, which Eilish pulls out for one concert) and to sing. Their parents remain supportive, and there's a plain-faced genuineness to that support. Eilish's mother Maggie Baird is almost as overwhelmed as her daughter when Bieber becomes the singer's friend (Baird also has an empathetic take on the star and the path his life has taken). Her father Patrick O'Connell watches as his daughter drives away for the first time on her own in her dream car, and he offers some simple wisdom about a parent's role as a child begins to live his or her own life.

They're good, decent, and humble people, seemingly untouched by sudden fame and money. Eilish and Finneas, having just written a song for a James Bond movie, can only laugh at the notion that they're technically millionaires now. They're still writing, recording, touring, and otherwise working in the way they had been before.

The music clearly matters the most here. When Eilish has some issues with her shins (She injured her hip in her youth as a dancer) and sprains an ankle after just getting on stage, she almost calls off a show or two. It's not because she doesn't want to perform. She truly believes the show won't be up to the standard she has set for herself to give the audience. The show does, though, go on, anyway.

The performances, captured in lengthy and still shots by Cutler, are great. That's to be expected. We don't anticipate, though, just how open Eilish is about the personal experiences that have gone into these songs and continue to go into those performances. She discusses mental health issues, in publicity interviews and with Cutler's camera rolling in more relatively private moments, and the issue of a routinely absent boyfriend keeps mounting, leading to the moment when she starts crying on stage while singing about complicated love.

Eilish leaves it bare on the stage—the joy, the pain, the troubled thoughts, the love for her fans. Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry shows all of that to be completely sincere.

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