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“Like witnessing my body standing in a mirror, aching to be seen.” Something Beautiful is a visual accompaniment to Miley Cyrus’s album of the same name – her ninth – and inside the film, which Cyrus also wrote and directed alongside Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter, she is fabulously dressed and lost in a dream. Something Beautiful the record features a cross-section of high-profile collaborators, and some of them appear here, like Naomi Campbell and Brittany Howard; for Something Beautiful the visual trip, Cyrus also worked with director of photography Benoît Debie, a veteran of films with Wim Wenders and Gaspar Noé. (Oh, and Lost River, Ryan Gosling’s wacko directorial debut.) So let’s go live to the film’s opening titles, where Miley’s trying to frame a speeding train in her mind’s eye.
MILEY CYRUS – SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: It’s ultimately fleeting, she’s saying, as her words appear on screen. “Your eyes can’t keep the passing landscapes from being swallowed into endless distance.” With images of flower petals unfolding and water dripping, it’s the spoken word intro to Something Beautiful, and from there the film pretty much follows the album’s track listing, just as its first featured look is the ravishing diamond baubles-and-filaments number from the cover art.
Even before Something Beautiful appeared, she was already referring to it as a visual album, so we can understand this film’s ambitious, concept-y collection of performances as being beamed directly from Miley’s psyche. The title track, steeped in the trappings of R&B and indie, showers her with sparks and harsh, almost discordant notes. At one point, she wears a Monchhichi-like muffler. “Undressin’, confessin’, that I’m so obsessed – yes,” Miley sings. Is the
“Something Beautiful” in the room with us right now? Because it’s being battered by crescendo and lost in shadow.
“End of the World” is next, and as the album’s lead single, it flirts with escapist pop to a mild disco beat. Miley’s in emerald green for this one, draped across the drum riser; Picasso is mentioned in passing, just like Botticelli will be later. Then it’s time for “More to Lose,” a kind of pop torch song, where the look switches from a bare-shouldered gown to a skull-sculpted mask made of hose worn over a silhouetted black coat. A xylophone plinks in the distance, and suddenly Miley is stalking the wider world in this outfit. A Hollywood soundstage, a dressing room. Maybe it’s just us, but between the fit and the lyrical themes, we were thinking about The Substance.
Love – the true forever kind, or even for just one night – obsession, and both parties searching for the sublime inside something they know is bad. These are the ideas Miley Cyrus is working with for Something Beautiful, and she pours intensity into the many close-ups throughout its visual accompaniment. Brittany Howard, the powerful singer and guitarist of the recently-reunited Alabama Shakes, appears in the clip for “Walk of Fame” – where Miley also writhes on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star – and for the Gregorian chant-tinged “Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved,” Cyrus is joined by Naomi Campbell. They strut, they pose, they riff on Madonna’s “Vogue.” “Come get under the one you’ve been dreaming of.”
Photo: DisneyWhat Movies Will It Remind You Of? In 2023, Cyrus accompanied her eighth album with another bit of visual pizazz. Endless Summer Vacation (Backyard Sessions) was a companion concert special, created by Cyrus with Something Beautiful co-director Jacob Bixenman, that featured performances inside and throughout the grounds of a fantabulous midcentury home overlooking LA.
Performance Worth Watching: As star and co-director and writer, Miley is all over this thing. Props to Something Beautiful costume designer Bradley Kenneth for making each of her looks totally distinct, yet still part of a complete aesthetic package.
Memorable Dialogue: “I walk the concrete like it’s a stage.” Boldness has always been Miley Cyrus’s guide as both a singer and performer, and the visuals she’s attached to the songs from Something Beautiful really do add a richness to the experience.
Sex and Skin: Not really – or, let’s say “sexual situations.” Miley’s looks throughout can be revealing, and at one point, she and real-life boyfriend Maxx Morando make out in a rainstorm.
Photo: HuluOur Take: In 2023, Endless Summer (Backyard Sessions) was cool, but it didn’t go far enough. Whenever Miley Cyrus found a groove, really letting her wild and ferocious trademark charisma off the chain, it would cut to sit-down interview segments that felt like promotional pap. Something Beautiful, in contrast, suffers from no such limitations. There are no interviews at all, for one thing. This is pure concept through and through, where frames are filled with darkness and sexuality, romance cut and chipped with damage. Instead of any kind of interviews, Cyrus as a director dives into frequent close-ups on each component of her features, like they are the eyes and mouths of her film itself. Miley’s id is speaking to us, showing off for us, and whether she’s stalking Hollywood and Vine at night, transforming into a threatening, alluring dream visitor, or playing with her own image as both a star and a woman, Something Beautiful goes all of the places. Not just in her mind or between the bands of an LP, but right out here. After all, a “visual album” shouldn’t exist only between the ears.
Our Call: Stream It! Miley Cyrus: Something Beautiful isn’t just a collection of promotional videos. As a visual extension of her album of the same name, Cyrus backs her songs with interpretive vignettes full of fashion from some runway in the mind and various conceived sides of her personality. If finally finding true love also signals the end of the world, then she’s of a mind to lean into it. Something beautiful can also eat you alive.
Johnny Loftus (@johnnyloftus.bsky.social) is a Chicago-based writer. A veteran of the alternative weekly trenches, his work has also appeared in Entertainment Weekly, Pitchfork, The All Music Guide, and The Village Voice.
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