Short Film, Songs and Shade: Taylor Swift is BACK

Keeping up with the last week of pop-culture drama, there has been one extremely famous name circling all tabloids and news platforms: Taylor Swift.

Ms. Swift is back, and more vengeful than ever. In the past week Taylor gained permission to rerecord all of her old songs so she can own them, and she launched an “All Too Well” short film depicting the story multiple songs of her Red album in a different way. Using actor Dylan O’Brien and actress Sadie Sink, it is said Taylor depicts a past relationship between her and Jake Gyllenhaal.

If you have missed some of the drama, the main takeaway is that the whole short movie shows different parts of the past relationship in multiple views. Multiple different people, specifically Jake Gyllenhaal, has commented on the video. Gyllenhaal comments about the irony and relation between similarities with them and the video, specifically in the lines “And I left my scarf there at your sister’s house / And you’ve still got it in your drawer even now.”

The different songs and ideas of her short film are told through different chapters in the film. The first being “An Upstate Escape” showing her honeymoon phase and stereotypical happy moments during a relationship. Next, the trials and unsteadiness of a large age gap in a relationship is shown in “The First Crack In the Glass”. “Are You Real?” is when forgiveness is shown and second chances are given in the relationship. After the relationship is over and the actors grow up and move on, “The Remembering” is displayed and all of the happy memories replay in a slide show view. Finally, in the end of the short film, it shows the actress grown up and selling a book called All Too Well, after the chapter is called “13 Years Gone”.

There are many “Easter Eggs”, or hidden things strategically placed in hopes of careful viewers noticing, found in the short film, although a very informed HF Swiftie was not shy to speak his mind when asked about the Taylor reconstruction and the hidden gems:

“Every piece of the puzzle in her video was calculated and was presented in a way to give a certain type of message.  Every windowpane, every color, every book, every word spoken is a message to the viewer somehow connecting to RED. Saying the video was strategic is understated because this has been in the works since it happened.”

• The scarf hanging on a banister, then again seen at the end of the film with a man staring at the young woman with it on. This refers to the scarf Jake Gyllenhaal and the scarf of Taylor’s that he took.
• 1989 Mercedes Benz car at the end of the film- relating to her 1989 album released years earlier. Taylor confirmed this on TikTok.
• The infamous birthday celebration with no boyfriend present was pretty obvious for Swifty fans. It’s referenced in the film as the “Moment I Knew” and took part in the break up
• The action of Dylan dropping Sadie’s hand in the video references Taylor’s champagne problems video.
• In the ending credits the “Later on Him” is played by Jake Lyon, a quick and easy negation towards Jake Gyllenhaal.
• Finally as most die hard Taylor fans know, she loves the number 13. Ironically the number 13 is seen when the video starts at 0:13 when the actress says “Are you for real?” and the 13 minute mark is when the video finished.

Dominic Cincetti-Gallegos is a truly devoted T-Swift fan and feels deeply about Taylor earning the rights to her music: “I think her reconstruction is well deserved after 5 months of no single. It also hides many Easter Eggs for Speak Now and also completes the story she first released in 2012. She also mentions many songs in All Too Well (10-minute version) that explains the entire reason for RED’s creation.”