Not sure about you but YEM hasn’t been ‘all too well’ since last Friday when Taylor Swift released a ten-minute version and short film of the most beloved song in her catalogue.
That’s right— “Red (Taylor’s Version)” is out and she left fans with much more than just her original album! With 30 songs and a message from the icon herself, Swift also dropped a fifteen-minute-long short film, in which she wrote, directed, and starred in, a few hours later. The short film takes us through the entire ten-minute version of Swift’s song ‘All Too Well’ while adding heartbreaking scenes and dialogue. It’s hard to believe there was a time where the line “you kept me like a secret, but I kept you like an oath” wasn’t known. The short film goes above and beyond any expectation fans could have had.
As genius as Swift is with her lyrics, her casting and directing showed no difference. Swift makes a statement with both the looks and the age gap between her casting of Stranger Things star Sadie Sink and Teen Wolf’s Dylan O’Brien. Sink, playing Swift’s younger version, and O’Brien portraying the ex-lover in the song, both bring to life the heartbreaking relationship Swift faced back then.
Let’s discuss some of the best moments, bursting with red, from the short film.
First, we must discuss the famous red scarf. Everyone knows the line “but you keep my old scarf from that very first week ’cause it reminds you of innocence and it smells like me,” and Swift obviously didn’t leave that out of the video. Sink brings it in O’Brien’s home in the beginning and later the older O’Brien (played by Jake Lyons) is wearing the red scarf as he looks through the window of the Brooklyn bookstore at the older Sink (played by Swift as herself). Talk about full circle!
The red theme continues with Sink’s red coffee mug and her red lipstick. But the typewriter is perhaps the coolest red theme in the video. Sink cries and pounds on it before crumpling the paper (“I’m a crumpled-up piece of paper lying here”). Then when the film flashes 13 years forward, that typewriter is still there resting next to a red lamp. I mean come on.
There’s also of course red-head Taylor Swift! Both in the flashback with Sink and when Swift appears herself at the end of the short film for her book tour. Could this be a hint? Let’s hope!
Of course, the fans want more from the most lyrical savage of today’s era. Could “Dear John” be the next short-film Swift creates?
