Billie Eilish is presented without filters in her documentary

If you watch the documentary “Billie Eilish: The world is a little blurry”, hoping to get the general details of the musical sensation, you are in the wrong place.

The two-hour, twenty-minute movie RJ Cutler about the singer-songwriter “Ocean Eyes” is not a biography and no report. It is a cinéma vérité-style dive into his life, home, concerts, trial, Tourette’s syndrome, his brother’s room where they wrote all his songs and even his diary in the year he became a star.

He is cruel and full of music, about 20 of his songs appear throughout the film, including live performances, such as his extraordinary concert at Coachella in 2019. Some songs are even complete. It is also a very, very long documentary.

Cutler, who also directed “The September Issue” and “Belushi,” cited several iconic true rock documentaries, such as “Gimme Shelter” about the Rolling Stones and “Don’t Look Back.” Bob Dylan as inspiration. But both were made a few years ago and the albums began after their careers. Eilish’s rise is extraordinary and yet it is at the beginning of his life, artistic and real. Fans will certainly disagree and are within the limits of their rights, but there is a huge amount of unfiltered space to offer an artist just starting out. There is no right or wrong way to make a documentary like this, but for those of you who are not fans of Eilish’s red bone and who are just a little curious, but without context, it is a litmus test.

Clearly, someone on Eilish’s team had an eye on his possible legacy when Cutler was invited to his family’s home to see if he wanted to follow the 16-year-old along with her brother and his wife. they took a career. releasing his debut album “When we all fall asleep, where do we go?”

Eilish is funny and taciturn, charismatic and fickle, as one would like and expects her to be a teenage artist. She becomes fanciful and protective of her followers, saying “they are not my fans, they are part of me” and she complains that for her, the composition is “torture”. She occasionally breaks the fourth wall (she told Cutler she wants to be like the sitcom “The Office”) to let the public know she’s there.

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

It’s interesting to see her already Finneas – Her brother – improvising the lyrics and trying different things – suffers from anxiety about having to produce a hit and she doesn’t give a damn – as well as juxtaposing his glamorous events and shows with the modesty of normalcy in his home life.

There are some great moments that Cutler recorded on the tour. In one, for example, she meets Katy Perry, who introduces Eilish to her fiancé, “a big fan.” It wasn’t until later that Eilish realized he was the actor Orlando Bloom. His brother reminds him that he is Will Turner from the movie “Pirates of the Caribbean.” He would like to repeat everything. “I thought he was just a guy,” he says.

Another is his first meeting with Justin Bieber. She talks about her long-standing obsession with the Canadian singer in an interview and he contacts her three days before the release of her album to tell her that he would like to collaborate. (She tells her manager “he could ask me to kill my dog ​​and I would”). Then, at Coachella, he shows up when he greets a horde of fans. It freezes and becomes a fan. Then he cries with an emotional message sent by him.

And there are incredibly vulnerable moments, which show her exhausted and upset.. Eilish is as unique and enigmatic as she seems from a distance, but she’s also pretty much portrayed as a normal Los Angeles teenager getting her driver’s license, dreaming of a matte black Dodge Challenger pickup, and sending text messages to a boyfriend mainly absent.

Fans will eat every crumb of this documentary and will want more. Those who barely know Eilish could benefit from seeing it in parts, which is one of the advantages of opening the film on Apple TV +. There is even a break.

It doesn’t look like a vain project that has been heavily controlled by the star or the cars around it. It’s refreshing. It is also probably one of the last times we will all be invited into your life this way.

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