Less than a month lies between now and the release of the anticipated documentary that chronicles the life of Generation Z pop music juggernaut Billie Eilish. The movie, titled Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry, is set to debut in theatres (lol remember those?) and on Apple TV+ on 26 February, and we’ve just been given our closest look at the project yet.
In a new trailer, we get a deeper insight into the world it captures: that of Billie and her family, in the process of the creation of her Grammy award-winning album If We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? and the hysteria that followed it. The trailer opens with that famous ‘Invisalign’ intro to the record, before taking us on a rapid trip through some of the album’s most memorable one-liners; we see Billie try to master the dark, whispering “I wanna end me” from “Bury A Friend” too. But it also lets us see just how intimately this project, one that would eventually break records, was created: no studio sessions or writer’s rooms, but with a brother and sister in their childhood bedrooms.
“I honestly don’t know how any artist of any age is doing it without a parent,” Billie’s mother, Maggie Baird, says. Insights from her immediate family seem to carry a lot of the project, with her tight-knit central circle appearing heavily in the movie. Their presence is not only out of legal necessity, though (don’t forget Billie’s been doing this since she was 14); you get the impression they were imperative in helping her get through a period of severe mental illness, which is also alluded to by Billie herself. At one point, she looks out into the crowd at a show and says: “You guys need to be okay, because you’re the reason I’m okay”.
The documentary is directed by R.J. Cutler, known best for overseeing The September Issue. What’s more, the release slot makes it eligible for the 2021 Academy Awards, where Billie is likely to pick up the Oscar for Best Original Song, thanks to her Bond theme “No Time to Die”. Could it be a double scoop to kick off a killer 2021 for Billie Eilish? We’ll have to tune in to Apple TV+ on 26 February to find out.