Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles – Film Review

GRAMMY® Award-winning and chart-topping artist Billie Eilish makes her Disney+ debut with Happier than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles, a cinematic concert experience. Fresh off the heels of her brand-new album, “Happier than Ever,” the Disney+ original will feature an intimate performance of every song in the album’s sequential order – for the first and only time – from the stage of the legendary Hollywood Bowl.

There’s simply no denying the fact that Billie Eilish is one of the most successful artists of this generation whether you like her or not. The first time I ever heard Eilish’s music was in the 2019 horror-superhero film Brightburn which featured “Bad Guy” as the ending track and I instantly fell in love with it. Fast-forward to today and I’ve probably played her debut album When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? more times than I can count.

I absolutely adore that album which is why I was shocked when I first heard her sophomore outing Happier Than Ever because I surprisingly ended up liking it more than her debut. It’s sixteen tracks full of love, empathy, sadness, and learning to love oneself. Not only does the album tackle themes that are better and more important than the first (in my opinion), but it also just sounds better vocally, lyrically, and production-wise. I’m convinced that her brother Finneas O’Connell is incapable of producing a bad song. They’re all outstanding and it’s one of the reasons why I can’t wait for his upcoming album.

But I’m so glad that Happier Than Ever: A Love Letter to Los Angeles exists because it’s one of the most fun I’ve had while watching a movie in an extremely long time. It’s incredibly short at just sixty-five minutes, but each and every second of this film is intimate and shows that whenever Eilish is on a stage, she commands it. The film opens up with the first track on the record, “Getting Older” which is not only a perfect way to kick off the album but this film as well. It lets us know who Eilish is and how far she has come since the beginning of her career.

I won’t be getting into the brilliance of the album and delve into each song (I’ve already done that in my review for the record at Vinyl Chapters) so I want to spend some time talking about the viewing experience of watching this concert special because it’s truly uplifting. There’s just something so endearing and entertaining about watching Eilish up on stage with her brother as well as an entire orchestra at times, having fun and singing songs. Eilish always feels like she is bringing something fun to the table here and it’s infectious to watch her dance and sing to her songs, surely giving fans a hint at what they can expect when they go to see her world tour in 2022.

And every once in a while, Eilish will finish performing one of her songs and the film will cut to an animated version of her driving around Los Angeles and taking in the world around her. Easily one of my favorite scenes in the film is the animated version of “Not My Responsibility” which made me love a song I already cherish so much more. It’s genuinely tricky to point out flaws for a concert film because, at the end of the day, it’s basically just a video of an artist or a band performing their album on a massive stage.

What will make the film entertaining is if you like that artist because if you watch a concert film of an artist you can’t stand, you’re probably not going to have the best time. This film is an absolute must-watch for hardcore Eilish fans but I genuinely do feel as though people who have yet to experience her music will get a kick out of this too. It’s an easy hour to watch, and it made me smile from ear to ear practically the whole time. Eilish’s album Happier Than Ever has truly never sounded better.