Taylor Swift – The Official Release Party of a Showgirl ★★

Released: 3 October 2025

With every release of a Taylor Swift album in recent years, the anticipation has been both excitingly immense and overwhelming. Swift’s 12^th album, The Life of a Showgirl is her return to the pop world after 2022’s Midnights, but reactions have been widely mixed. To accompany the release, The Official Release Party of a Showgirl film allowed fans to get a small glimpse into this new era on the cinema screen. 

Two years after the box-office hit The Era’s Tour film, the expectation around The Official Release Party of a Showgirl were high. Released in cinemas for just 3 days between 3^rd-5^th October, fans could see The Fate of Ophelia music video for the first time and see behind the scenes action into making it. In between this, sitting in her directors’ chair, Taylor delved into each track on the album and gave small explanations behind the inspiration. Filling in the extra time slots are lyric videos for each song with a 5-10 second loop of visuals, similar to what you see on Spotify.  

The Era’s Tour film was a celebration of all things relating to Swift’s biggest tour to date, but none of it really explored the behind-the-scenes into the making of it. At an expensive price of £19.89, which acted as a promo for her re-release of 1989 (Taylor’s Version), it felt as though it lacked depth. Sure, it was absolute fun being able to dress to the nines in all things sparkly and singing on top of our lungs to our fave songs, but it felt unnecessary without much background. Luckily, you could see The Official Release Party of a Showgirl at a standard ticket price, but it only offers fans an inside scoop into creating the music video for the lead single, and little reasonings behind each song. The one word to describe the viewing would be underwhelming. When you go to the cinema, you want to be enthralled by the experience of what you are watching – whether that is through excitement, the relatability of its subject or even scared by it. The whole point is to be transported to a new world or new story and feel like you can leave your own world inside your head for a few hours. Sadly, I was in my seat questioning what I was watching. 

Arguably, the biggest issue with this ‘film’, is that putting it in cinemas is an ill fit. Perhaps YouTube would have been a better platform, because post-October 5^th, Taylor’s social media started posting snippets from the film. There are many questions being raised now: Is our favourite pop princess turning her talent into a pure cash grab? Does she need any more money? It’s hard to not feel deflated post-screening after spending majority of the time watching lyrics on the screen – something you could just look up on your phone. 

As a Swiftie since 2006, I’ll always be a supporter – I want to make that very clear. The love for Taylor will never fade. While The Official Release Party of a Showgirl was a complete miss, you can see the love she has for her craft. Now, please give us the Era’s Tour documentary, please and thank you.