The 26-minute film, released alongside the Eternal Sunshine Deluxe, features the return of singer’s character Peaches
What would the release of Ariana Grande‘s Eternal Sunshine Deluxe be without Peaches? Her beloved character returns to star in the new short film Brighter Days Ahead.
Like the videos for the singles “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)” and the Penn Badgley-starring “The Boy Is Mine,” the 26-minute film is directed by Grande and Christian Breslauer, and inspired by 2004’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.
70 years after the “We Can’t Be Friends” video — in which Peaches erased all memories of her ex, played by Evan Peters — she’s back in the waiting room at Brighter Days Inc. Only unlike the last time, an elderly Grande is about to relive curated moments from her life, both happy and heartbreaking. Sitting in a wheelchair, a nurse ushers her into the high-tech room, and asks her which memories she wants to revisit. Grande passes her a piece of paper, which reads “All of them.”
Grande takes the immersive journey, selecting memories that appear as glass spheres. Songs from the Eternal Sunshine play during each memory: a present-day Grande performs the title track, while she sings “Supernatural” walking amidst a city in ruins. A separate scene shows her her father, the Brighter Days Inc. founder and doctor, bringing her back to life à la Frankenstein, after she’s torn apart by stray cats as “Hampstead” plays. After she experiences these memories, they’re erased forever.
Grande teased the Brighter Days Ahead film during her massive Wicked promotional tour, mentioning it in a Vanity Fair interview and at the Golden Globes. “There’s something I made last year that will come out eventually,” she hinted during the latter. “It’s an attachment of Eternal Sunshine. So, that does exist, and that will be coming out at some point. But no, I’m not in the studio at the moment.”
On Sunday, Brighter Days Ahead will screen for fans in New York, Los Angeles, Boca Raton, and Chicago.
