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 am a 56 year old mom and have been captivated by Billie since I first heard Ocean Eye's. I watched this because I wanted to know more about her. I wound up seeing my own daughter's struggles reflected in Billie's. I teared up more than once. This documentary (aside from watching this amazing artist) showed me that as parents we need to be more in touch. Our children are dealing with a lot these days, and it's so important to validate their feelings and individualism. Their mental health is at stake. I'm so thankful for Billie's willingness to share her vulnerability with us.

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.

Billie Eilish is navigating life as a superstar. She's a BRILLIANT performer, writer and director. She's infinitely compassionate and completely dedicated to her craft, fans, and family. She's also an INCREDIBLY complex, insecure young woman enduring tremendous physical and emotional pain. She also happens to still live at home with her Mom and Dad, JUST like a "normal" teenager. Aside from touring the globe and being pursued by paparazzi and flocked fans to whom she is SO generous, on any given day, she could be just another Justin Bieber adoring fan, BUT she isn't, and this glimpse into how she handles this life is BRILLIANT. A must see look at an AMAZING young woman and her family.

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.