But both of those came a few years and albums
into The Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan’s
superstardom. Eilish’s ascent is extraordinary
and yet she is still in the early part of her artistic
and actual life. Fans will certainly disagree, as
is their right, but it is an enormous amount of
unfiltered space to give to an artist who is still
getting started. There’s no right or wrong way to
make a documentary like this, but for the Eilish
curious and not the Eilish die-hards, it’s initiation
by fire without any context.
Clearly someone in Eilish’s camp had an eye
toward legacy when they invited Cutler to her
family home to see if he wanted to follow the
then-16-year-old during her breakout year,
during which she and her brother Finneas wrote,
recorded and released her debut album “When
We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?”
Eilish is funny and sullen and charismatic
and moody, just as you’d want and expect
a teenage artist to be. She gets dreamy and
protective of her followers, saying “they’re not
my fans, they’re like part of me” and complains
that for her, writing songs is “torture.” And she
breaks the fourth wall occasionally (she’d told
Cutler that she wanted it to be like “The Office”)
to let the audience knows that she knows
they’re there.
Her brother is the driving force a lot of the
productivity in their cozy family home in
the Highland Park neighborhood of Los
Angeles (he’s since moved out). Their parents
homeschooled them and music was always part
of their life, with mom, Maggie Baird, teaching
them how to write songs and dad, Patrick
O’Connell, teaching instruments.