Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry

I am a 51 year old single mom and I've loved Billie since the minute I first heard Ocean Eyes. I'm constantly amazed by her growth and groundedness and brilliance. When I was a teenager, we felt that way about Madonna. It's just amazing when a rare jewel shares herself with the world. Even so, a two hour documentary is a pretty huge commitment and I though I'd check out the first 20 minutes or so. Nope. I watched the entire thing which was riveting and honest and emotionally exhausting and completely uplifting. Proud of her like a momma. Keep going girl, but give Madonna a call if you ever get hung up....

This is what a documentary should be like. It was absolutely fantastic. I'm a huge fan of Billie so yes I loved it but this movie is just flawless

Billie and Finneas are so talented and this movie shows their talent

In ordinary circumstances, I probably wouldn't have watched this. Though I like Billie when I've seen her interviewed previously, I'm not really a fan of the style of music she does. That said I enjoyed (though that sometimes "enjoyed" is slightly the wrong word) the film.

Split into two halves, the documentary follows the singer Billie Eilish and her brother Finneas O'Connell as they produce her debut album "When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go". Her increased profile along with the immediate success of the album see her perform at the Cochella festival. The second half sees the stresses that touring the album has on her physical and mental wellbeing, before finishing with the albums sweeping success at the Grammy awards.

A documentary like this is entirely reliant on the access that the family are willing to provide the filmmakers and here they were allowed to see a lot of personal candid moments at home and footage from the kids growing up. Our central pair mess around trying to write the album, we see the breakdown of Billie's relationship with her boyfriend, lots of footage of the physical damage that Billie's high voltage performances have on her body, the mental stresses of travel and meeting randoms and trying to be earnest with people without spending every minute of your time hugging fans.

It's sad at times, and stressful, as you can see that she hasn't always been emotionally well at points in her life and the amount of stress that we put on performers, particularly in an age of social media, is something we really need to address. There's a lot of time spent with her parents, who homeschooled both their children and encouraged an interest in art, dance and music and who, at times, seem rightly worried about what the world, and in particularly, this world of musical acclaim, might do to their daughter.

Away from the specifics of the subject matter, the access that the filmmakers were given and the small narratives that manged to be pulled from several years of footage makes for an interesting and rewarding documentary.

As a casual fan of Billie Eilish's music I found this film to be insightful as well as entertaining. You really get a sense of who she is, as an artist and a human being. A lot of wide ranging emotions. Feel like I now have more context and understanding of her career, but in a way that doesn't feel like a history lesson. Main negative I have is that the structure of this film felt a bit off, and maybe a bit repetitive (the long runtime didn't help).

I'm equal parts too old to empathize with this personally and yet 100% convinced that Billie rules. Much like her music, this is an endlessly compelling documentary whose intimacy makes you feel like you're watching a friend. It's a cliched comparison in pop music, but there's a Cobain-esque quality to her, particularly in her wrestling with pop iconography. That comparison is unsettling (seeing how Cobain's life ended), but this immersive everyday epic is far too committed to the moment to be that pessimistic.