I Went to Taylor Swift's Movie. By Myself.
Is it odd for a 52 year-old man to do this? Not for me.
Last Sunday, I arrived at Duncan’s Caprice Theatre an hour before the 4:15 pm matinee showing of Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour Movie. I was the only one there. For quite a while.
The two teens working the concession asked if I wanted to ‘go for a walk’ to kill time.
“I’ll just read my book,” I said.
And with that dullsville dad move, so began my long, day-into-night shift inside a rundown cinema; a man in his 50s, sitting by himself for almost 3-hours of Taylor Swift.
I wasn’t nuts for showing up so early.
It was opening weekend of a limited run for a mega-spectacle movie that gives millions of Swifties, pop fans, and parents a chance to see the epic concert they never had a chance to witness live. Online, I saw lineups that stretched city blocks—ecstatic teen girls dressed in their favourite “Era” costumes, trading Taylor friendship bracelets, and waiting hours in the heat to watch the tour in two-dimensional form. (By the time I left the theatre, the weekend box office take for The Eras Tour was around $97 million).
Yet. I was the only person. In the only movie theatre in Duncan.
Being alone inside The Caprice can be…unsettling. I have nostalgic yearnings for times in which I never existed—vintage diners, grandpa hats, and old hotels really get my tail wagging. But The Caprice is not retro by design, it’s retro by depression. The rundown lobby smells like popcorn, thrift store, and motel mornings. I really want it to have charm and to stand proud as an ‘aw-shucks’ small town movie house. But no. It feels more like a building to hole-up in, shotgun in hand, ready to fight zombies.
The theatre did eventually fill up close to start time. A lot of little girls adorably dressed in sparkly outfits, escorted by beaming moms or reluctant dads. There were birthday party groups buzzed on sugar. Trios of adult BFFs clad in Taylor tees. A few couples on dates. Two crying babies. By the time the lights dimmed, the theatre was more than half-full, and I felt a little more connected and a little less bananas for being there.
Just before Taylor took the stage and the cameras panned across thousands of fans in the film, the mother in front of me asked her little boy:
“Poo-poo or pee-pee? Quick, which one?”
They left for the bathroom. A timely move, seeing as The Eras Tour is a 168-minute movie that encapsulates a singer’s entire catalogue. That’s a lot of Taylor Swift.
Why did I go to The Eras Tour by myself? It wasn’t for shtick or fodder for a story. I’m still quite new to the Island, so I don’t have many new acquaintances I can ask out for a matinee, let alone a sprawling concert movie (“Hey man…can you ditch your family for 4 hours this Sunday to watch Taylor Swift sing about breakups and relationship revenge with me? No?).
Aside from not finding a film friend, I went alone to this movie for 3 reasons:
I am a sucker for concert movies. Any. As a TV director, I love seeing how these shows are executed. And as a music nerd, I love the thrill and story arc of a stage show. (Just last week, I hit the big screen for Talking Heads’ 40th Anniversary release of Stop Making Sense , still universally considered the finest concert ever captured on film. Sorry Swifties).
I genuinely like Taylor Swift’s music and celebrity expertise. Folklore and Evermore—her 2020 pandemic releases of electro-acoustic cottagecore ballads—are always in heavy rotation through my headphones.
But the primary motive was to experience the movie the same time as my daughters did in Kelowna, as I promised them I would.
This was the crux of my Caprice visit. It wasn’t tedious dad-duty or an empty 3-hour gesture. For me, it was a meaningful and creative way to bond with my two girls from afar.
My girls, now in their teens, have lived in Kelowna with their mom for over a decade, following the amicable end of my marriage. Lily and Willa are only a short plane-hop or a half-day’s drive away from my Vancouver Island home. When I can get out there or they come to me, our visits are packed with adventure.
I’ve religiously phoned them every suppertime since they were in diapers. It’s an evening ritual I still keep, even if it means excusing myself from important commitments for a few fun minutes.
Being a long-distance dad doesn’t have to be a melancholic or resentful fate. Of course, I wish I had brought them up in person, and the surprise gifts I mail them are no substitute for real connection. Still, our daddy-daughter relationship is fully realized, effervescent, and alive—even if, technically, we are now separated by the Pacific Ocean.
Watching Taylor Swift imaginatively perform her “eras” and her evolution as an artist was a clear allegory for the evolution of my dad and daughter journey. The public has watched Taylor grow up the same time I watched Lily and Willa grow up, and we listened to her music together, each different era of Swift’s a unique era for the three of us.
Taylor Swift’s bazillion-dollar concert, with its mind-blowing stage effects and inordinate costumes started off as sheer spectacle, but soon settled into a kind of hushed, personal experience like flipping through a photo album.
When Swift kicked off the 1989 album era with Blank Space and Shake It Off, I was transported to Kelowna for marathon dance parties with the young girls. When she performed Lover, we were in our minivan singing along with the volume cranked. When my favourite Swift song, The Last Great American Dynasty came up, I whooped as I watched an elaborate stage play of the song unfold, knowing they’d love it too (watch this link for a sense of it).
And when Taylor sang her newest material from Midnights, I was proud that Lily and Willa texted me songs the day the record came out. That they love pushing songs on me, like I push songs on others, is DNA in action.
When I got home from my Swift-a thon, I received a text from the girls’ mom. It was a photo of my youngest, Willa, decked out in a Red era outfit—shades and all—ready for the same Sunday matinee as me, only 460 kilometers away. Lily has a ticket for next week’s showing, and is still deciding what to wear.
The three of us will compare notes, rank our favourite moments, and laugh at the unhinged audience from our respective theatres.
And it will be one hell of a phone call.
I love this for you. I remember your girls as wee ones well. We did good❤️
I have never seen her movies!
But loved hearing about the girls and your reactions. So much love.