Taylor Swift’s newest movie unpacks her latest album, The Life of a Showgirl, in detail and takes us behind the scenes of one of the song’s videos. Along the way, you’ll hear a bit of language and see a lot of skin.
When Taylor Swift sings (or talks, or does just about anything), people jump.
Take the release of her 12th studio album, The Life of a Showgirl. The 12-track album was released at midnight, Oct. 3, sending Swifties scurrying to their nearest Target store (which stayed open in response to the release) or jumping on their favorite music platform. (Life of a Showgirl became Spotify’s most-streamed, single-day release of 2025 just 12 hours later.)
Though folks may not jump as high for the album’s accompanying movie, Taylor Swift: The Release Party of a Showgirl. While Swift’s previous cinematic effort (Taylor Swift: The Eras Tour) was notable for movies jumping away from their planned debuts (eight movies sprinted to new release dates), only the movie Grow vacated its original release date this time. Still, The Official Release Party is expected to be the weekend’s biggest moneymaker, likely outdueling Oscar-bait films featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Dwayne Johnson.
Not too bad for what amounts to a glorified music video of one song.
OK, so there’s a bit more to the movie than that. But the video for “The Fate of Ophelia” forms the spine on which the rest of the movie hangs. We see it at the open. We see it at the close. And throughout, Swift takes us through a behind-the-scenes “making of” tour, unpacking the vid’s lavish set pieces, creative choreography and the thought behind it all.
The Official Release Party of a Showgirl serves as a first-weekend, theatrical playthrough of The Life of a Showgirl album, too. The rest of the songs don’t get the same full-blown video treatment that “Ophelia” does. But the songs do play as the words of the lyrics flash across the screen and Swift herself sits or stands or dances for the camera.
We’ll be reviewing Life of a Showgirl in more detail next week. But this review can serve as both a brief look at the movie as well as a small peek at the album itself. So without further delay, let’s dive in.
Let’s start with Swift herself. It’s no accident that she has earned the undying love and loyalty of millions of fans—and it’s not all about the music. For all her obvious celebrity and power, Swift comes across as honest, relatable and vulnerable. And many of her songs encourage listeners to be happy, strong and fearless.
The song “Opalite,” Swift says in its introduction, is about making your own happiness. She talks about the perfectionist pressures that she, as an “Eldest Daughter,” can put on herself in the preamble to that song, noting that all of us can get caught up in the weight of expectations. “I’ve been dying just trying to seem cool,” she sings—a lyric that so many people can likely relate to.
In “Cancelled!” Swift talks about her own experiences on the cultural “don’t touch” list. (Though, in all honesty, I can’t think of a time when that ever happened to Swift.) She notes that most anyone can feel cancelled these days within their own social media feeds. She sings about how you can know her friends because “We’re the ones with the matching scars,” a nod to not just her famous celeb pals but her own fans who’ve felt the sting of ostracization.
Swift embraces a lot of old-fashioned values in her lyrics, too. “When I said I don’t believe in marriage, that was a lie,” she sings in “Eldest Daughter.” In “Wish,” she admits that her own wishes lean more toward a surprisingly suburban life with a husband, kids and a basketball hoop in the driveway.
Spiritual references are few and far between. On “Opalite,” she sings about how “Life is a song/It ends when it ends.” The chorus of “Father Figure” tells us that someone “makes a deal with the devil.”
She references a handful of superstitions on the song “Wood.” Indeed, in her intro to the song, Swift says it’s about popular superstitions … and then gives the audience a knowing smirk. Which leads into the next section.
“Wood” is not about superstitions. It’s about physical arousal, and it’s filled with double entendres. That makes it, by far, the most suggestive song on The Life of a Showgirl album—but it’s just the beginning for the movie.
Swift takes her role as a showgirl (or, really, multiple showgirls) seriously. She makes several costume changes for “The Fate of Ophelia” video: In one scene, she channels Marilyn Monroe in a red getup that exposes cleavage, leg and a great deal of behind. (The other dancers that surround her are similarly clad.) Other outfits expose tons of skin—sometimes feeling practically diaphanous—while obscuring any critical body parts. In the video’s last scene, she lies in a bathtub, a barely-there costume revealing about 90% of Swift’s skin.
And you’ll see a lot of those outfits throughout the rest of the film, too. She wears them during other songs, often centered in a sort of kaleidoscope. (In one segment, that kaleidoscopic effect takes Swift’s bare back and makes it look a bit like a bare behind.)
Another note: The song “Actually Romantic” contains a few lines that reference a snide same-sex attraction between two women. “No man has actually loved me like you do,” she sings in the chorus, and she playfully suggests this other woman seems like she’s “flirting.” But all those references are clearly tongue-in-cheek in context. Swift says in her introduction that “Actually Romantic” is a “love letter to someone who actually hates you.” Swift is the target of someone’s ire, and that “someone” (which many speculate is Charli xcx) has gone well out of her way to smear Swift any chance she gets. “Thank you for all the effort,” Swift sings snidely. “Honestly.”
For those who aren’t familiar with their Shakespeare, the Ophelia referenced in “The Fate of Ophelia” was Hamlet’s doomed significant other—one who was driven crazy and ultimately drowned herself. The video opens with Swift in the guise of Ophelia (from Friedrich Wilhelm Theodor Heyser’s famous painting), lifeless. The balance of the video contains a number of tongue-in-cheek references to Ophelia’s fate: Swift falls from a ship’s gangplank in one artfully staged scene. In another, 1930s-style dancers perform a number while holding life preservers.
Swift is also involved in a short, mock swordfight for the video. And in a behind-the-scenes segment, she wears a bandage on her pinkie—explaining that she cut it, but she’s not quite sure how.
The album itself appears to come with just one swearword, “d—n.” But Swift misuses God’s name in the movie several times, and we hear a more ambiguous reference to “Oh my Lord” in “Opalite”.
Some of Swift’s songs contain references to alcohol. In “Cancelled!”, she notes that she and her friends like their “whiskey sour” (a double-sided reference in context), and in “Father Figure” she references “brown liquor.”
Taylor Swift claims to be a lot less judgy these days, after her own experiences being roundly judged by the public. Still, the pop star disses with the best of them. “Father Figure” could be an ode to Scooter Braun, whom Swift battled with for six years to get back the rights to her music. We’ve already unpacked her backhanded compliments to the subject of “Actually Romantic.”
Once again, The Life of a Showgirl suggests that you cross Swift at your peril. But it also talks about the cost of showbiz. Some songs (especially the title track) note how brutal the business can be, and Swift candidly talks to the movie audience that it takes a special type of temperament to handle it.
Taylor Swift is a paradox, and few of her products showcase that better than The Official Release Party of a Showgirl.
In behind-the-scenes footage, Swift can come across as an enthusiastic high schooler, filled with vivacious energy, love and appreciation for seemingly everyone she comes across. In her on-camera interviews, Swift feels winsome and honest, wise and oh-so sincere—a good friend to everyone in the theater who’s come to see her.
But in “The Fate of Ophelia” video itself, and in the other songs featuring Swift posing and preening for the camera, she’s all diva. Powerful. Alluring. Unabashedly risqué. Sometimes in those sequences, she feels as chilly and untouchable as an alabaster statue atop a 30-foot pedestal.
Maybe that’s one of the secrets to Swift’s success: After all, most of us have such contradictions at our core. We can feel like world-conquerors one moment and unloved the next. We can be capable of incredible acts of kindness and horrific acts of cruelty within minutes of each other.
The Official Release Party of a Showgirl is, certainly, meant for fans of Swift—and fans who’ll rush out to buy the album (perhaps several copies, in order to get all the different versions of its cover) and sprint to the movie at their first opportunity. When Taylor speaks, people jump—and I doubt that many of her most ardent listeners will jump to Plugged In to see if they should.
But for those that do, The Official Release Party is all about Taylor’s transparency—in her lyrics and in her outfits. Her relatable music will continue to touch a chord. Her costume choices will raise many an eyebrow. Like Swift herself, this film is a mixed bag, filled with an enigmatic mix of positive and negative.
Just like us all.
Paul Asay has been part of the Plugged In staff since 2007, watching and reviewing roughly 15 quintillion movies and television shows. He’s written for a number of other publications, too, including Time, The Washington Post and Christianity Today. The author of several books, Paul loves to find spirituality in unexpected places, including popular entertainment, and he loves all things superhero. His vices include James Bond films, Mountain Dew and terrible B-grade movies. He’s married, has two children and a neurotic dog, runs marathons on occasion and hopes to someday own his own tuxedo. Feel free to follow him on Twitter @AsayPaul.
