I Snuck Out of Work to See the Taylor Swift 'Life of a Showgirl' Movie

Taylor Swift just dropped her 12th album, the Life of a Showgirl, and on the same day, debuted a 90-minute movie in theaters that was vaguely touted as a "listening party," was exclusively being shown in theaters for three days only and would cost as much as a narrative feature. So, even though I am not a rabid Swiftie, didn't really know what I was paying for and have a job I'm supposed to be at Monday through Friday until 6 p.m., I bought a 3 p.m. ticket weeks ago and quietly exited the Slack channel to hit my local AMC. Here's what I experienced at the Taylor Swift Official Release Party of a Showgirl as the flick is clumsily named, and what you'll see if you go, too. (Spoiler: It's so worth it.)

First off, in lieu of a full-on Eras Tour, I was treated to sitting in a full theater of tweens and their moms dressed in glittery costumes and T-shirts celebrating all things Taylor. The lights went down and Swift's creamy skin, bangs and orange creamsicle lipstick filled the screen; she explained this film as the latest in a long line of release parties she's done over the years, but the first in a theater. The program would include the world premiere of the video for "The Fate of Ophelia" and the lyric videos for each song on the album, as well as her explanations of what inspired each cut. Since I'd stayed up til midnight the previous night to hear the album right as it was released, I was curious—how would she explain some of the more obscure song subjects, and also, were these 8-year-olds going to hear about grown-up Taylor's adult content? (As a friend said on hearing the album, "I wasn't expecting horny Taylor.")

I needn't have worried. As always, the smartest and hardest-working woman in the room, Taylor Swift, had it all figured out. The movie started with the super-fast moving The Fate of Ophelia, which Swift explained is a mash up of 1) a lover that saved her from feeling dead, like the doomed Shakespearean heroine from Hamlet, and 2) a survey of historical women that could be thought of as showgirls, in their way. So, in the video,Taylor dances and sings through set pieces—with her trusted Eras Tour dancers, who she reunited for the event—playing an Old Master portrait of Ophelia, a 1950s Vegas dancer, a '60s go-go girl, a chorus girl in an Old Hollywood musical and a modern pop star. It helps that the song is a tightly-crafted banger, with the propulsive Max Martin/Shellback production daring you not to tap along with the beat.

Throughout the next 90 minutes, the bulk of the film had Swift sitting in a chair telling us, her subjects audience, the inspiration behind each song, then stopping to play the accompanying lyric video. She was dressed in an orange short-sleeved sweater and leg-revealing shorts or miniskirt, with her legs crossed, punctuated with black lace up shoes and black socks. America's billionaire singer-songwriter's vibe was warm, but serious, quite the English teacher explaining her inspirations, which range from pop culture ("Elizabeth Taylor" had "fame, love and notoriety" but was accompanied with anxiety that it wouldn't last forever), and personal references ("Opalite" is the name of an artificial opal, one of mom's and her favorite stones).

There were some really touching moments that I appreciated having the lyric videos for, too, such as "Ruin the Friendship," a wistful teen gothic romance-that-never-was and "Eldest Daughter," in which Swift plays piano and sings about the perfectionism of being an oldest daughter, as well as how she's happy to welcome to her family a youngest son, which Easter Egg collectors will recognize as Travis Kelce's birth order in his family of origin.