Is it Worth the Watch: Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u
Image Courtesy of IMDB
By Ryn Cole
In Olivia Rodgrio’s new movie, Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u, the artist takes her fans along with her on a beautifully filmed journey from Salt Lake City to Los Angeles. Through this trip, she discusses the process of creating her debut album, Sour, and how its success affected her life. The movie consists of heart-wrenching performances, top-tier vocals, exclusive interviews, and a very intimate look into her recording process.
At only 19 years old, Rodrigo has already created a name for herself within the music and television industry (and a pretty popular one at that). Sour sat at number one on Billboard’s Top Album Sales Chart for five non-consecutive weeks after it was released on May 21, 2021. Since then, Rodrigo has won three Grammys, been a guest on numerous talk shows, and starred in a documentary streaming on Disney+.
The film opens with some archived footage of Rodrigo when her hit single “Driver’s License” first came out and her life changed forever. After the release of this song, she said that she knew she needed to release a full album.
The scene switches to her sitting on the floor with four of her band members around her in a bright, minimalistically designed room. This all-female band consists of two guitarists, Heather Baker and Arianna Powell, as well as Moa Munoz on bass and Hayley Brownell on drums. In this particular scene, Rodrigo sings a rendition of “happier” that sounds very similar to the version on the original album. “happier” was the first song she recorded with Dan Nigro, her producer.
She goes on to sing a rock version of “jealousy, jealousy” under a bridge in an empty parking lot. She describes her headspace when writing the song, saying, “You want people to look at you for your talent and your skill, and you’re also, you know, 18. I want people to think I’m, like, pretty and cool and funny or whatever.”
Next, she plays guitar and sings “1 step forward, 3 steps back” in the backseat of a moving car on her trip through the open roads of Utah right before she describes the heartbreak she experienced while writing “Driver’s License.” She sums up her passion for writing when she says, “I think I’ll always write songs. I think it’s, like, my form of expression and my way of, you know, making sense of the world.”
A highlight of her second single, “deja vu,” comes next when Rodrigo briefly discusses the drama between her and a “love triangle” during her career. Next, we get an intimate glimpse into her recording process of “favorite crime” and “brutal” before she performs full versions of these songs.
One of the most impressive parts of the documentary is how she changes the background music of numerous of her songs. This gives a refreshing twist to many of the songs that superfans know by heart. For example, “good 4 u” is accompanied by a string orchestra rather than an electric guitar as the lead instrument. Rodrigo then opens up about never feeling good enough before performing “enough for you” on a piano in the woods.
She performs “hope ur ok” as the final song in the movie, sending her audience off with a positive message to take care of ourselves. In this scene, Rodrigo wore a gorgeous light blue dress on the beach with her band closely behind her, and when the song finishes, they all run into the ocean laughing and accepting the ruin of their clothes.
Throughout the entire documentary, Rodrigo finds a way to showcase her songs with beautiful scenery and an exciting wardrobe that captures her personality. The movie is worth the watch, if not for her outstanding performances or her honest insight into the life of a teenage superstar then for the aesthetics alone. After watching this documentary, it is fair to say that Olivia Rodrigo’s career is just getting started.
