Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry

My husband and I learned tonight watching this documentary that we need to to let go of judgment, let go of frustration, let go of all of it and just love our kids and support our kids. This was an amazing journey, Billie's, Finneas', her parents', and ours. We will be forever grateful, things change now. Aside from that, it was really a great documentary.

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.

Never have I listened to a song by Billie Eilish, I've never really cared for her music personally, I've seen a handful of small clips from her online, and of course watched those Grammy awards but that's about all I knew about her. I also tend to not like docs about artists who are still alive today, I always feel like they're pretty one sided and don't tell a full story. But damn, this really made me appreciate her as an artist. This doc really gives you a feel for her a person, as a sibling, as a friend, and as an artist. All the ups and downs are here. It never feels one sided or feels like it pushes false truths. It's very raw, it's heartfelt, and you get some great insight behind the scenes. Coming from someone who's never listened to Billie their whole life, this doc is great for those like me, and i'm sure even better for her millions of super fans.

Amazing documentary ... It was a little long though.

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).

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.