Billie Eilish first captured her Grammy- and Oscar-winning career in R.J. Cutler’s great documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, but for her next cinematic feat, the pop star is aiming for crystal clarity.
Partnering with James Cameron as co-director, Eilish is unleashing her first concert film, Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D), into theaters this weekend, and the meeting of the two titanic talents has made an impression on critics, with an 89 aggregate rating on Metacritic and 87% on Rotten Tomatoes.
“This is an often electric document of Eilish’s show: the pure quality of image and visceral sense of 3D immersion is spectacular, as if we’re feeling a new form of presence in performance,” writes Brandon Yu in The New York Times. “You can already imagine the spiritual experience it might offer for her devotees. But even for the uninitiated, the film intimates a palpable sense of the connection Eilish has with her fans, most of whom we see throughout the concert sobbing and crooning in communion with the star.”
The effect of the three-dimensional photography for fans is a document of Eilish’s presence that only could be captured this way.
“Co-directed by the Avatar maestro with the singer-songwriter herself, the clunkily titled concert documentary Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D) cannot possibly replace the thrill of being there among the shrieking throngs, let alone meeting one’s hero face to face,” writes Angie Han in The Hollywood Reporter. “But with its vivid footage, sometimes captured from breathlessly intimate proximity, you might be able to believe, just for a moment, that you could really reach right through the screen and touch her.”
Critics continued to heap praise on the endeavor from an artistic and technological standpoint, one that often left similar films paling in comparison.
“All of this is heightened by the electrifying way that James Cameron, the co-director of Hit Me Hard and Soft (the film’s other co-director is Eilish herself), has shot the movie,” writes Owen Gleiberman in Variety. “I’ve grown used to seeing perfectly good concert films, in the meticulously stage-managed era of high marketing and promotion, possess a certain look and feel, one that’s often a bit cookie-cutter. (That was true, for instance, of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour.) But Hit Me Hard and Soft is a concert film that doesn’t look and feel like other concert films. It’s a true experience, because of a combination of the show itself and the way that Cameron has filmed it.”
Beyond the spectacle of the on-stage antics, Hit Me Hard and Soft (The Tour) — Live in 3D also features quieter moments with Eilish and Cameron, serving a more intimate look at what it’s like being a globally famous pop star in your mid-20s.
“If you’re looking for a straightforward spectacle featuring some of your favorite Billie Eilish songs, you’ll get it here,” writes Clint Worthington for RogerEbert.com. “Luckily, we also get at least a little more of the woman behind the artist, even if it feels a bit curated. We see glimpses of her struggles with show injuries (she’s long had problems with shin splints and sprained ankles), heartfelt couchside confessions about the stresses of being a female artist in this landscape, and even a ‘puppy room’ with local shelter dogs, which is evidently a ritual for each of her shows. (‘Everyone needs some dog love,’ she beams while surrounded by pups.) It’s hardly the kind of deep dive into her personal life that R.J. Cutler’s Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry was, but it’s more than we typically expect of this kind of concert doc.”
