To call Driving Home 2 U a documentary isn’t quite accurate. Disney+’s portrait of pop phenomenon Olivia Rodrigo, released on Friday, is more like a concert film-meets-home video. Directed by Stacey Lee, it weaves together grainy, filtered footage of the singer gazing moodily into the distance against various beautiful backdrops with creative performances of the songs from her blockbuster debut album, Sour. Throughout the film’s 75 minutes, Rodrigo gazes moodily at the ocean, she gazes moodily from the roof of a greasy spoon diner in Utah, and she gazes moodily at her own reflection in the mirror of an inexplicably pink public restroom. Like the teen star herself, it is thoroughly, meticulously stylized.
In Driving Home 2 U, Rodrigo embarks on a road trip in her Instagram-worthy, vintage baby blue Ford Bronco (because of course she has a vintage baby blue Ford Bronco). She retraces the route between her one-time home in Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, a drive she made countless times during the writing and recording of Sour. The film also includes footage from the recording studio during the final production sessions for the album. It’s a sort of behind-the-scenes of the making of the album, as well as a revisitation of it—and the artist behind it—one year later. “I want to play these songs in the places that meant so much to me,” Rodrigo says in the film. “And revisit them with older eyes, I guess.”
At just 19, the former Disney starlet somewhat ironically reflects on her life with the melancholy of a hardened industry vet—and yet, the idea that one might be much older and wiser at 19 than they were at 17 or 18 is so very teenager. It’s an encapsulation of Rodrigo’s appeal, both to fellow teens that identify with her totally genuine assertion that “nobody understood how I was feeling or related to it” in the aftermath of the breakup that inspired the album, and to adults who vividly remember what it was like to feel so very much for the first time.
The main difference between Driving Home 2 U and other recent docs about young female pop stars, such as Billie Eilish: The World’s a Little Blurry and Taylor Swift’s Miss Americana, is that we rarely hear from anyone except Rodrigo herself. There are no interviews with her parents or mentors. One friend is featured, the musician Jacob Collier, but he seems to function more as a cinematic device to break up the solo interviews with Rodrigo. The only other main character is her producer and collaborator, Dan Nigro, who we see in old footage from the Sour recording sessions.
Instead, the film is all about the music. Driving Home 2 U boasts new arrangements and stunning performances of all the earworms from Sour. Rodrigo segues between musical numbers by sharing anecdotes about the inspiration behind each song and the process of writing it. Opening track “Brutal,” for example, was allegedly, miraculously written in a matter of minutes when Rodrigo decided she needed another upbeat song for the track list. “Feeling like you aren’t good enough for someone who is your whole world is so devastating,” she says candidly at another point, introducing “Enough for You.”
One of the best arrangements is a sped-up, pop-punk take on “Jealousy, Jealousy,” about the toxic influence of social media, performed under a highway overpass. While the original version has a whispery, dizzying sound reminiscent of The Kills, the new rendition taps into the singer’s anger and raw emotion at the pressure to be perfect. A stripped-down version of “Favorite Crime” is also a highlight, with Rodrigo first wailing the heartbreaking lyrics a cappella, then with a single electric guitar, in an empty Arizona amphitheater. With less noise, it’s easier to appreciate Rodrigo’s Swiftian penchant for simple, evocative songwriting.
Less effective but still striking is a performance of “Good 4 U” that goes all in on the drama. Backed by a full string section (violins, cellos, the whole nine yards), Rodrigo belts her ubiquitous breakup anthem in the desert at dusk. It’s certainly not an improvement on the already stellar original, but it’s fun to see Rodrigo lean into the operatic melodrama of her music while surrounded by gorgeous, towering red rock formations.
Visually, Driving Home 2 U is a Tumblr blog come to life. Every shot is grainy and sun-soaked, and Rodrigo is styled to perfection in vintage slip dresses, ’90s-style fuzzy hats, and the quintessential fashion staple of the youth, Doc Martens. It’s a glorification of the Americana aesthetic, dropping this impossibly chic, punk-lite teen star into unlikely settings that only seem cute or charming or photogenic to those who don’t encounter them on a daily basis—a gas station in the middle of the desert, a convenience store with claustrophobic, cluttered aisles, and the aforementioned greasy spoon diner. Everything is meticulously created to have the appearance of romantic free-spiritedness, like when a high schooler lovingly cultivates their messy, collage-adorned bedroom.
Using the theme of driving as the centerpiece of the entire film is clever and effective not only because of the obvious nod to Rodrigo’s mega-hit debut single, “Drivers License,” but also because of how essential driving is to the teenage experience. It represents freedom and one’s first taste of adulthood. It represents transition, both literally from one place to another and figuratively from one phase of life to another. We all have at least one formative memory from adolescence that took place in someone’s mom’s Toyota. Plus, Sour is a perfect album to listen to on a road trip, scream-singing along to the angsty lyrics at full volume (take our word for it).
Driving Home 2 U is not especially revelatory, nor does it convincingly make the case that we needed a documentary about a 19-year-old pop star who released her first album less than a year ago, no matter how unprecedented her ascent to fame. But fans will love it, and this writer, at least, will be listening to the amped-up version of “Jealousy, Jealousy” on repeat for the next three to six weeks.
