Billie Eilish is all grown up and wants to handle herself on her own terms

How Billie Eilish ended up dealing with it a tour of over one hundred stops not only as a singer and producer, but also as a directora, alongside James Cameron? The two undoubtedly form a very particular pairing and, watching the screening of what attempts to be both a big screen tour and a documentary on the artist at its centre, one gets the impression that they seek different results from the project and work in a complementary way to achieve them.

Eilish didn’t even think about making a new film based on her “Hit Me Hard and Soft” tour. with a documentary dedicated to her and a concert experience already behind her created for the launch of “Happier Than Ever”. In the last decade he has experienced everything in terms of goals and achievements in the world of show business, therefore at just 24 years old she can already speak with the experience of a veteran and this is perhaps the real difference that comes across when comparing this film to “Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry”. In the documentary of 140 minutes of 2021 Eilish was described as the teenage prodigy that she is, who has fallen into global fame whose weight he shared only in part with his brother Finneas, musician, composer and producer of many of his pieces.

Not that Finneas hasn’t always been on stage with her, On the contrary. One of the few firsts left for Eilish and told in this documentary is that of face a tour without him by her side. Finneas sends her flowers and a message at her debut, showing up as a surprise at one of the four stops in Manchester filmed by James Cameron to build this tour movie. Although the name on the records is that of Billie, it was mainly her who addressed the interviews and red carpets, it is the first time that she is actually alone on stage and she almost seems to replace Finneas with Cameron, a long-time family friend who, however, seems to treat her as a colleague rather than a “granddaughter”.

Cameron, one of the most prolific blockbuster directors ever to come out of Hollywood, is what you might call a great geek. From “Titanic” to “Avatar,” his projects are often a medium through which to put a point and test the latest technological innovations in the cinematographic field in the field. He himself defines himself as a nerd, who prefers to move in the technological vanguard, leading the way in Hollywood even today for the implementation of an infinite series of small and large technological innovations. Cameron then approaches the friend and mother of a young pop star and he explains to her that he wants to film a live concert with 3D cameras to test in the field the improvements that have occurred in the last twenty years in the three-dimensional sector. Eilish lets herself be convinced with the promise of a more intimate, tangible show, which with 3D will also reach fans who were unable to attend her very long and detailed tour.

However, he dictates his conditions, so much so that in the end Cameron follows her well before the quadruple date in Manchesterchosen precisely to immortalize four performances and stitch them together in the editing (there is almost no separation). So the seventy-year-old director asks the artist 47 years his junior to explain the concept of the tour. It’s one of the passages in which Eilish is least filtered, now accustomed as she is to taking care of her public persona. He explains with some excitement the attempts with which he made the show more his own: he chose the set list of songs (ranging from the latest EP “Hit Me Hard and Soft” to “Happier Than Ever” going back to the hits of the debut album “When We All Fall Asleep Where Do We Go”) and took care of the colors of the performances, the design of the stage, the outfit of the musicians and the backup singers at his side.

This time her looks are comfortable, urban, even if Eilish returns to what is both her cross and one of her characteristic traits: there’s nothing really feminine or sexy about the tour wardrobe, she does her own hair and makeup on the fly just before the show, in a very masculine and relaxed visual approach. She arrived at a moment in his career in which he can afford to approach his audience without too much performance anxiety but, she explains to the surprised Cameron, she has never really overcome the sense of inadequacy for that feminine ideal that her colleagues project and with which she doesn’t feel comfortable. On stage he can dress, jump and move like rappers and hip hop legends who he adored as a young man, but he doesn’t feel 100% comfortable with the same attitude, despite it having become one of his stylistic signatures. Her hope, she says, is to pass the baton to a generation of colleagues who will find it absolutely normal.

In fact, the interesting aspect is how, not even thirty years old, Eilish already feels responsible for the image she projects, for the relationship with her audience who idolizes her. With a shrug of her shoulders she shows the scratches that the fans give her when she goes downstage to say hello and give them a high five, she writes a sign for the more extremist fans who have slept in sleeping bags outside the arena, on the way out she leans out of the window and greets the spectators still crowded along the entire street. At this point even James Cameron, someone who experienced the collective hysteria for Leonardo DiCaprio post-Titanic and who is certainly no stranger to global media attention, asks her what she feels.

The interesting aspect of the film is precisely this point of view completely alien to Eilish’s world for age, media and cultural reasons. He is there to test his 3D cameras and make a good product, without the transport that the directors of these products usually have towards a musical subject of which they are used to being fans, or at least a familiarity with the story of music on the big screen. The most successful passage of the entire “Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)” is precisely the one in which Cameron goes down among the girls crowded on the barriers and interviews them, by having them tell us about their passion for Eilish’s music. They respond to him like any other camera technician, excitedly explaining how the music of the film’s protagonist is their lifeline, therapeutic and identity-building at the same time, to the somewhat disconcerted disbelief of Cameron himself.

I don’t know if I would exactly define the experience of watching the film as “intimate”, but it hits a couple of goals. The first is to confirm that Eilish doesn’t need who knows what incredible setups because she has a voice, a charisma and a repertoire thanks to which the entire concert (and the dedicated film) they can revolve around her, without even a change of outfit. Listening to the twenty or so pieces proposed on stage, one notices how his propensity for ballads and sad songs has gradually moved in many directions: from the almost dance segment with the self-tuned voice to the more rock one with the guitars, passing through catchphrases such as “Bad Guy” (obviously) and the duet “Guess” (without Charli XCX) but still enthralling. Its element however are songs like “BIRDS OF FEATHER”, in which all the lightness and grace that he feels he doesn’t embody are transferred into his voice, although she then sings about a love relationship in which some have seen her experiences with various stalkers who have persecuted her

It emerges with equal force how much he is now a figure who manages his public image: almost embarrassing, for example, is the segment in which he plays with the foundlings that the staff sends to each stop from local abandoned animal shelters as anti-stress therapy, in the hope that someone will adopt them. It emerges quite clearly from Eilish the commitment made to being what it is today, in the personal sacrifice that entails: she’s bruised like an old rock n’roll star, all bandages and medical prescriptions to go along with the call to the vocal coach who makes her do very serious warm-up exercises in preparation for the performance. The Cameronian lens through which we see it this time, whose admiration is purely professional, is perhaps the best to understand the artist’s urge to control and shape his public perception. In fact, the scene has undoubtedly taken something away from her in terms of her private life and she wants to manage what remains, on her own terms.

“Billie Eilish – Hit Me Hard and Soft: The Tour (Live in 3D)” will be in Italian theaters starting May 7, 2026.