Billie Eilish is shown without filters in her documentary

If you watch the documentary “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry” hoping to get the general details of the musical sensation, you are in the wrong place.

The film of two hours and twenty minutes RJ Cutler there is no biography or report about the singer-songwriter of “Ocean Eyes”. It’s a cinéma vérité-style dive into his life, his house, his concerts, his trial, his Tourette syndrome, his brother’s room where they famously wrote all of his songs, and even his diary the year he starred. became.

It’s raw and full of music, about 20 of his songs appear throughout the movie, including live performances like his extraordinary concert at Coachella in 2019. Some of the songs are even complete. It is also a very, very long documentary.

Cutler, who also made ‘The September Issue’ and ‘Belushi’, quoted several iconic cinéma vérité rock documentaries such as ‘Gimme Shelter’ about the Rolling Stones and ‘Dont Look Back’ on Bob Dylan as inspiration. But both were made several years and albums after their careers began. Eilish’s rise is extraordinary and yet she is at the beginning of her life, artistically and real. Fans will certainly disagree, and they’re right, but it’s a huge amount of unfiltered space to give a budding artist. There’s no right or wrong way to make a documentary like this, but for those of you who aren’t a fan of Eilish’s red bone and are just a little curious but have no context, it’s litmus test.

Obviously, someone on Eilish’s team was eyeing her possible legacy when Cutler was invited to her family’s home to see if she wanted to follow the then 16-year-old during the year she and her brother began their careers. Composing, recording and releasing his debut album “When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”

Eilish is funny and taciturn, charismatic and capricious, as you would and expect her to be a teenage artist. She becomes fanciful and protective of her followers by saying “they are not my fans, they are part of me”, and complains that composing for her is “torture”. She occasionally breaks the fourth wall (she told Cutler she wanted it to be like the sitcom “The Office”) to let the audience know she knows they’re there.

His brother is the driving force behind much of the productivity in their cozy family home in the Highland Park neighborhood of Los Angeles (he has since moved). Their parents raised them at home and music has always been a part of their lives. His mother, Maggie Baird, he taught them to compose and his father, Patrick O’Connell, she learned to play instruments.

It’s interesting to see her now Finneas – His brother – improvises the lyrics and tries different things – he suffers from a fear of having to produce a hit and she doesn’t care – as well as juxtaposing his glamorous events and performances with the modesty of normalcy in his home life.

There are some great moments Cutler recorded on his tour. In one of them, for example, she meets Katy Perry, who introduces Eilish to her fiancé, ‘a big fan’. Only later does Eilish realize that it was actor Orlando Bloom. His brother reminds him that he is “Will Turner from the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ movies”. She would like to repeat it all. “I thought it was just a boy,” he says.

Another is his first meeting with Justin BieberShe talks about her long obsession with the Canadian singer in an interview and he contacts her three days before her album is released to tell her that he would like to work together. (She tells her manager “he could ask me to kill my dog ​​and I would”). Then he shows up at Coachella as she greets a horde of her fans. She stiffens and becomes a fan. Then she cries with a moving message from him.

And there are also incredibly vulnerable moments, which leave her feeling exhausted and upset. Eilish is still as unique and enigmatic as she seems from a distance, but she’s also kind of portrayed as a normal Los Angeles teenager, getting her driver’s license, dreaming of a matte black Dodge Challenger pickup, and texting a boyfriend which is largely absent.

Fans will eat every crumb of this documentary and will want more. Those who barely know Eilish may benefit from seeing her in sections, which is one of the perks of the movie opening on Apple TV +. There is even a break.

It doesn’t seem like a vain project intensively controlled by the star or the machinery around it. It’s refreshing. It is also probably one of the last times we are all invited into your life in this way.

“Billie Eilish: The World’s A Little Blurry,” premiering for Apple TV + and Neon, premieres Friday. It has not been rated by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA). Duration: 140 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.