15 May,2026 08:21 AM IST | Mumbai | Mayank Shekhar
A still from ‘Billie Eilish — Hit Me Hard and Soft’. Pic/Instagram
Press shows, held at smaller preview theatres, are sober affairs. You don't usually meet social-media influencers at such places - the sorts of non-serious blokes that journalists disapprovingly sneer at, anyway. As they mustn't. The world is what it is.
I watched Billie Eilish: Hit Me Hard and Soft, strangely, with a bunch of younglings, with their cameras turned to their faces - pretty much, all through - while they lip-synched to Billie's songs, panning their phones to the big screen, alongside.
It's the best way to have watched this film. Which is a concert video, after all. The Gen Z energy felt infectious. They were there for Billie. I was inside, more, for the movie's co-director, James Cameron.
It's so rare to watch a Cameron film that over the years of Billie's entire career - going from zero to global icon (2015 onwards) - Cameron (Titanic, Terminator) has only directed two movies, and that too, Avatars (The Way of Water; Fire and Ash)!
He ensures these are pop-culture milestones, chiefly pushing towards untested frontiers in technology, including inventions for particular films.
Hit Me Hard and Soft opens with a warning against extreme flashlights that could potentially disturb those with epilepsy. You already have deeply tinted, 3D glasses on.
I'm no tech geek. Yet, my sense is the claimed inventions regarding this movie must have something to do with shooting live, with 3D-enabled cameras, rigged/hidden, plus zoom lenses capturing moments from really long distances, while the stage seems an open field.
You can sense Billie breathing into the screen. For a second, I spotted tonsils of a fan at the concert, with others' fingers flying in the air, close enough, to touch my eyes.
The intimacy is complete. There is no narrative, let alone a conflict, in this movie.
If you were looking for a script about Billie, instead - RJ Cutler's Billie Eilish: The World's a Little Blurry (2021, Apple TV) is the place to go. It's a mildly moving documentary.
Music's the only point of this production. You burn through an album, in a dark hall, with sound so heavy that the bass rumbles on the chest. Does it hit you hard enough? Hell, yeah.
It helps that I'd discovered Billie - chancing upon her tracks âBury a Friend', âBad Guy', online, once - before even realising the size of the phenomenon.
Obviously my connect with her isn't the same as the fans in this film - mostly teenaged girls, who describe her influence to their mental health as more than therapy + parents!
Still, you can see what the fuss is about. Her persona resonates. While her productions are inevitably peppy - she also conceptualises, directs her videos - the music is soothingly anchored in melancholy.
Somehow, she reminded me of Fiona Apple, when I first heard her. What separates her from everyone, though, is the sheer Gen Z girl star-power in a field where top female pop-artistes were so squarely sexualised for aeons before.
She's on stage in a loose tee, three-fourths/pyjamas and boots, with thick socks, covering her shin. Hardly any makeup. There are no back-up dancers.
She's sprinting around, when not descending, ascending from multiple spots, before settling down with her acoustic guitar.
Concert videos of favourites albums/artistes, ideally in Blu Ray, has been a thing for music fans, forever. That said, is getting Cameron to capture such onstage bareness/sameness a lot like hiring, say, Leonardo Da Vinci, to paint your home? Maybe.
It's also the way you look at it. I would've even liked the lyrics, karaoke style, on the screen - the way Imtiaz Ali experimented with Amar Singh Chamkila (Netflix, 2024). If possible, the seats could be done away with - for an immersive venue that, as it is, feels like a proper concert, with the best spot in the arena.
For desis, that's like going for a super-expensive show, without having to walk miles before, after, jostling through crowds, along with humiliation of police bandobast that, anyway, gives you vibes of a party gone bust. Much prefer this pic. Any day.
