Thoughts: Taylor Swift - The Eras Tour

For everyone who didn’t attend Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour in person, news of the Eras Tour concert film was a godsend. What better way to experience Taylor’s career-spanning setlist than on a giant screen with an obnoxiously large popcorn bucket in your lap? And depending on your theater, you may also get to watch with like-minded Swifties who’ll sing along and trade friendship bracelets! That last part there doesn’t reflect my personal experience, but I’m happy to report that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour delivers on its main promise: Two hours and forty-eight minutes of Taylor singing her songs on the highest-quality sound system you’ve heard them on.

It should be said that Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour is not trying to be Stop Making Sense. As much as I personally would have loved Taylor to hire a director with an eye for cinematic artistry like the late Jonathan Demme, she didn’t. There are some sequences where director Sam Wrench has some fun with camera angles or sweeping pans, but there are no allusions to German expressionism. Taylor knows her audience wants one thing above all— to feel just like they’re on the arena floor— and the film does a good job of replicating that. In fact, the loudest sound in the whole thing is the crowd noise, so I’d say they nailed it.

The lengthy runtime is all killer, no filler. Pretty much every crowd-pleasing Taylor song is here, back-to-back, with limited interruptions. If you have no prior knowledge about the Eras Tour, you’re in for some surprises; there are some amazing costume changes, stage effects, and song transitions awaiting you. If you’ve watched the TikTok streams, or god forbid, saw the tour in person, then you can relive those moments in high fidelity. Yes, this is all to say it does exactly what it needs to do, no more and no less.

Part of me wishes that there was an alternate version of this directed by Taylor herself that leans a bit further into the cinematic aspects of her personality. What better way to continue her blossoming film career? We’re mere months away from Beyonce’s Renaissance concert film which, considering that artist’s penchant for visual flair, could be on an entirely different level of spectacle. That said, The Eras Tour’s comfort-food approach still satisfies, and it sure beats Ticketmaster fees. Let’s hope the concert film never goes out of style.