brighter days ahead

what happens in it

it is a direct sequel to the we can't be friends video, set seventy years later. peaches — the character she played in that video — is elderly, and is in the waiting room of brighter days inc., a company that has moved on from erasing memories to restoring them.

the premise inverts the original exactly. the first film was about a woman paying to have a relationship removed. this one is about the same woman, at the end of her life, paying to have it back. that is a genuinely good idea and it is executed with more restraint than the setup suggests.

the directorial debut

it also sits alongside her first executive producer credit on petal a year later. two authorship credits in two years, after a decade of not having them, is a pattern rather than a coincidence — and both follow the 2023 change of management.

the deluxe album

eternal sunshine deluxe: brighter days ahead came out the same day, adding six new songs to the 2024 record — including twilight zone, dandelion and hampstead — plus remixes with mariah carey, troye sivan, and brandy and monica.

the brandy and monica remix is the one worth noting: the boy is mine on the original album shares its title with their 1998 record, and putting both of them on the remix turns a reference into an endorsement. the samples piece covers why that is not a sample.

the awards

three vmas in 2025 — video of the year, best pop video, and best long form video. video of the year for a twenty-minute short film rather than a single is unusual, and it is the largest award her video work has taken. the awards page sets out where fan-voted trophies sit against juried ones; the vmas are the former, which is worth knowing while still noting the result.

where to watch it

youtube, where it premiered and where it still lives. it has no other streaming home, which makes it one of several things in her filmography that exist only on the channel.