Dueling Billie Eilish Documentaries Contrast The Girl She Was With The Woman She’s Become

In a crowded field of exciting young female artists, Billie Eilish stands alone. While her origin story is similar to many of her generation — bedroom aspirations begetting internet fame, followed by conflicts of emotion and ambition — her story differs in one key way: where others have stumbled and gone flat, she seems to move ever onward and upward. It doesn’t hurt that she’s very, very, talented, has a rock solid support network in the form of her family. More impressively, she has a sense of herself and her artistic intent that is formidable, especially in someone so young.

Two recent films contrast the Billie Eilish we knew with the Billie Eilish she’s become. The documentary Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry, which premiered on Apple TV+ this past February, tracks her ascent from internet buzz artist to multiple Grammy winning “It Girl.” And her new “cinematic concert experience,” Happier than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles, finds her presenting the songs off her new album (Happier than Ever) in staged performances and is available to stream on Disney+.  

The World’s a Little Blurry was directed by noted documentarian R.J. Cutler, who most recently helmed Belushi, Showtime’s 2020 documentary about the troubled Saturday Night Live comedian. Filming began in 2018, before the release of Eilish’s first album, When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?, and goes up through her remarkable run at the 2020 Grammy Awards, where she won 5 awards, including Album, Record and Song of the Year. 

In a very real sense, Billie Eilish are a band, with the frumpy teenage fashionista as the front person and her brother, Finneas O’Connell, as the backing group. Four years Billie’s senior, Finneas is her creative partner, co-writing and producing all her songs. That’s a lot of talent for one family, which also includes parents Maggie Baird and Patrick O’Connell. Actors and musicians themselves, they homeschooled their children and nurtured their artistic pursuits. “Our family was just one big fucking song,” Billie says of her childhood. 

Throughout the documentary, Eilish vacillates between a Joan of Arc-like sense of destiny and the crushing insecurity of your average teenager. She faces down managers and record executives but crumbles when she learns her boyfriend is partying back home while she endures to the rigors of tour. “How do people not miss me? I would miss me so much,” she moans to her mother. Her only solace is found performing in front of her fans. “I don’t think of them as fans. Ever. They’re not my fans, they’re like part of me,” she says. A lot of artists say shit like this. With Billie it feels real. In her appearance, her words and actions, she’s just like them. 

At over two hours run-time, The World’s a Little Blurry is long. So long it has an intermission, which follows her bittersweet 2019 appearance at Coachella. While her show confirms her stardom, she’s disappointed with her performance. Later, she meets tween-crush Justin Bieber, who becomes a spirit guide for the young and famous. Somewhere after dumping her boyfriend, Eilish hits her stride, which carries her through to the end of the film and her 18th birthday. 

Happier than Ever finds a different Billie, blonder and more confident, but in many ways the same as before, completely in control of her presentation and music. Directed by Robert Rodriguez, of Sin City and Spy Kids fame, it finds her performing her new album in between animated segments courtesy of Oscar-winner Patrick Osborne. Her brother gets second billing, now going by the mononym Finneas, as he should, given his musical contribution and budding solo career. 

It’s hard to listen to Eilish’s new material and not find lyrical Easter Eggs pointing back to The World’s a Little Blurry. “Things I once enjoyed / Just keep me employed now,” she sings on “Older Now,” reflecting fears she grapples with in the documentary. Other songs reference bad boyfriends, industry abusers, Internet body shamers and shit talkers, all things that pushed the younger Billie to the brink. Now, she just puts out hit records, calls up A-list talent to collaborate with, and cries all the way to the next awards show.    

I’m not sure there’s much “live” performing going on in Happier than Ever and the premise of “a love letter to L.A.” doesn’t go much further than Eilish saying so. In a year of album-length music videos, it’s the most straightforward. However, this works to its benefit, presenting the songs with little pretension besides a pretty backdrop and allowing the music to speak for itself. Eilish continues to mature as a vocalist, exhibiting the control of a singer about to enter their peak years. If her indie girl voice gets tiresome after awhile, she seems willing to switch it up and at 19 years old has plenty of time to grow. As she sings in “My Future,” “I’m in love with my future, can’t wait to meet her.”

Benjamin H. Smith is a New York based writer, producer and musician. Follow him on Twitter: @BHSmithNYC.

Stream The World's A Little Blurry on Apple TV+

Stream Happier Than Ever on Disney+