8 Takeaways From ‘Taylor Swift: The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,’ in Theaters This Weekend Only

The film begins and ends with nods to the Eras tour, which wrapped after nearly two years 10 months ago. The first thing fans see before the curated pre-movie playlist is a countdown clock — the same exact visual from the start of the Eras tour, but this time, it started at 12 seconds (in honor of TS12).

Swift previously explained that the album was made during the European leg of the Eras tour last year and concluded the film by honing in on that fact. Her new era was “completely inspired by the most incredible time of my life,” Swift confirms in the film’s outro.

In one cut-by-cut interview about “The Fate of Ophelia,” Swift opened up about why Shakespeare is “not overhyped” and how the album’s track came to be. She explained that she has a document containing a bunch of potential lines she has thought of throughout her career: “Some of them I’ll look back on and be like, ‘That was the dumbest line I’ve ever written’ […] but sometimes you get something where you’re like, ‘Oh that was actually pretty interesting.’”

During one writing session for the album, Shellback showed her a chord progression he was working on, which later became the single’s hook. Swift found “the fate of Ophelia” in her file of potential lyrics, and “Ophelia” perfectly matched the beat.

The rest of the story came after. “It hurts me that they die,” Swift said about the tragedy of Hamlet and Ophelia. “So this is the second song where I’ve gone back in and was like, ‘Yo, what if they got married instead of they die?’”

Swift kicks off the movie by premiering the full music video for her first Showgirl single, “The Fate of Ophelia,” which she wrote and directed. In it, she reunites with her Eras tour band, dancers and backup singers and takes fans through the different eras of showgirls.

The visuals open with Swift depicted as the famous Ophelia painting by Sir John Everett Millais, before transitioning into various cabaret, theater, and classic film personas. The final sequence features Swift back in her own shoes — at an Eras tour afterparty in a hotel room.

She concludes the film by playing back the video again, giving Swifties another chance to take in the glamour one last time (until its Sunday premiere on YouTube, that is).

There are also plenty of Easter eggs to unpack, but we’ll get to those later.

The lyric videos and interviews in the film were broken up with different behind-the-scenes moments from the “The Fate of Ophelia” visual and rehearsals, where fans learn a lot about Swift’s thematic intentions and takeaways from the music video.

Fans get a glimpse at Swift’s initial pitch for the music video, where she excitedly lays out her plans for introducing the different eras of showgirls over a grainy video call.

In rehearsals, which Swift says lasted three weeks, she is seen wearing an orange stint on her pinky finger — she explained she sliced it on some broken glass balls.

During the shoot, we learn that the dancers and extras are playing off of just a metronome and never actually heard the final cut of the song. Swift reunited with Mandy Moore for the big choreographed scenes, who she last worked with on the Eras tour. As the shoot goes on, fans also see how much kindly Swift treats her crew, but also how much of a perfectionist she is: “We have a perfect one in that one,” she says at one point after watching a playback of the dressing room scene. “Can I just try to be a little bit better?”

In the interview before the lyric video for “Father Figure,” Swift shared that she worked with the George Michael estate on approvals before moving forward with the song.

“We reached out to his close family friend and his family, and just made sure that everything was okay before we ever did anything,” Swift explained. “It was amazing to have the okay, and to keep them in the mix of everything that was going on because I know how sacred songwriting is. And it’s really important to just make sure you honor that when someone has written something so brilliant.”

In the interview before the title track’s lyric video, Swift shared how Sabrina Carpenter reacted to her invitation to be featured on the song and explained how the collaboration came together.

“I just kind of was like, ‘I want Sabrina to sing on this so bad,’” Swift recalled thinking after finishing the writing session for the song. “She is so good at moving through backlash or criticism, or people just being unfair to her, or picking her apart. She has the temperament to pivot and use it as fuel […] I really feel like she’s got the same mentality as what this song sings about.”

As for Carpenter’s reaction to the ask? “She was like, ‘Are you kidding? I’m dead. Yes, of course,’” Swift recalled of their conversation. “Then when she was on tour in Sweden, she took her days off and went and recorded it. And that is a showgirl for you.”

Before sharing the lyric video for “Cancelled!,” Swift opened up about the meaning behind the song, explaining it as a “sort of social outrage that everybody goes through […] you can literally feel canceled by any sort of social backlash you get.”

She also revealed that she is the person her friends call when they’re facing any sort of criticism: “I tend to be the person they reach out to. So it’s very funny, ‘cause it’s just sort of like, ‘Oh yeah, okay, somebody told me you got in trouble for making that joke. How are you doing? It’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine. You wanna go to lunch?’”

Since Swift showed the music video for “The Fate of Ophelia” twice, the second viewing was the perfect opportunity to find some Easter eggs. Here’s what we spotted: