Anyone who watched Hannah Montana or her meta Black Mirror episode will know, Miley Cyrus has undeniable acting chops. She also relishes a big swing, so a 55-minute musical film accompanying her ninth studio album – a sprawling progressive pop LP also called ‘Something Beautiful’ – is an exciting prospect.
- READ MORE: Miley Cyrus – ‘Something Beautiful’ review: the post-genre popstar pulls off another big swing
It’s billed as a “one-of-a-kind pop opera fuelled by fantasy”, which Cyrus has called her “way of touring” without putting her body and damaged vocal cords through the rigours of a nightly arena show. So, given that 2014’s bonkers but brilliant ‘Bangerz Tour’ featured Cyrus riding an oversized hot dog and a giant inflatable replica of her dead dog, Something Beautiful should be appealingly surreal, right?
Erm, wrong. It’s essentially a compendium of 11 glossy music videos with no interlinking plot or dialogue besides the album’s spoken word parts. Indeed, five of them have already been released on YouTube as self-contained clips. Cyrus co-wrote and directed it with Jacob Bixenman and Brendan Walter, both of whom worked on visuals from her last album 2023’s ‘Endless Summer Vacation’. The Bixenman-directed ‘Flowers‘ video, which shows Cyrus owning her yoga-honed physicality in an enviable LA pad, isn’t massively dissimilar to some of the visuals here.
Every track from the ‘Something Beautiful’ album gets an accompanying clip: some are highly stylised performance pieces; others have Cyrus vamping against vaguely showbizzy backdrops like a Hollywood studio lot. The cinematography by seasoned Harmony Korine collaborator Benoît Debie is stunning even when the imagery is humdrum: Cyrus performs the widescreen ballad ‘Golden Burning Sun’ on the back of a motorbike while a wind machine tousles her hair, a video concept that might have felt cutting edge in 1981.
Fortunately the whole endeavour is speckled with camp. Cyrus sings ‘Walk Of Fame’ while strutting down the actual Hollywood walk of fame: a literal interpretation of the lyrics, but a fun one. It’s surely no accident that she chooses to roll around on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s star given her romantic history with his son, The White Lotus actor Patrick – whatever could this mean, Miley? Equally entertaining is the ‘Every Girl You’ve Ever Loved’ clip, in which supermodel Naomi Campbell pops up as a kind of hyper-glamorous life coach. When she instructs Cyrus to “pose”, the singer doesn’t let the side down.
Campbell’s cameo does draws attention to the fact that Something Beautiful is a little over-reliant on Cyrus’s charisma and ability to hold a close-up. Appearances from Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard and Cyrus’ musician boyfriend Maxx Morando, the only other credited cast members, are frustratingly brief. Watching the project as a whole is a bit like arriving at pre-drinks to find that someone has queued up 11 slightly same-y Miley Cyrus tracks in a row. Hardcore fans will be entranced; more casual admirers might want to wait until they all end up on YouTube.
Miley Cyrus’ ‘Something Beautiful’ comes to select UK cinemas for one night only on June 27