‘Billie Eilish: The ‘World’s A Little Blurry’ Depicts A Nascent Chapter Of Teenage Stardom [Review]

At only 19-years-old, pop singer Billie Eilish has already experienced the level of high-pressure stardom, all-eyes-on-her success that most pop stars take decades to accrue. As the internet and entertainment world at large reawaken to the toxic culture surrounding celebrity in the wake of the “Framing Britney Spears,” there’s no better moment to take another scrutinizing eye to the way female artists are treated in the unforgiving, over-sexualizing music industry. That said, the documentary about Gen Z electric pop wunderkind “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” is never quite as clear-eyed as it could be about the story it wants to tell—something about perseverance, the unifying power of family, the normal difficulties of being a teenage girl on top of pop stardom. Instead, a ‘Little Blurry’ is just that and gets wrapped up in creating a lengthy montage of the ups and down’ of teen stardom in its extensive two-hour-plus runtime while never quite illuminating who Eilish is beyond some of the stereotypes of teenage girldom. The documentary wants to show the extraordinary aspects of her new world as her career suddenly explodes, and her world goes topsy turvy. It goes on to depict how she creates her Grammy award-winning debut album “When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?” and sets forth on her world tour, while also illustrating the mundanities of being a teenager such as getting her drivers license. “The World’s a Little Blurry” tries too hard to give a full picture of talent on the rise and, by doing so, scrambles itself, leaving us with snapshots instead.

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