All Too Well Or All Too Much: A Swiftie and a Non-Fan Debate The 10 Minute Music Video
Is Taylor Swift score-settling or telling on herself in her magnum opus, presumed to describe her brief relationship with Jake Gyllenhaal?
In Depth

Taylor Swift slowed down the world on Friday with the release of her re-recorded album Red (Taylor’s Version), which included a 10-minute rendition of her song “All Too Well.” The new version of the song dropped alongside a highly anticipated short film of the same name, featuring actors Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink playing two lovers hurdling quickly toward the end of their relationship.
If you’ve not already been inundated with explainers on who “All Too Well” is about, the song is a retelling (from Taylor’s limited point of view) of her relationship — and subsequent break-up — with Jake Gyllenhaal who was 10 years her senior at the time of their romance. Fans have long hailed the original version of the song as one of the defining tracks of Swift’s entry into pop music. It’s, without question, a sad girl banger.
With the music video, Taylor has put on a few extra hats going from singer-songwriter to director-screenwriter. A devoted Swiftie (Shannon) and a chill non-Swfitie (Rich) debate the merits of this short film.
Was the
Shannon: Overall, I would say that the entire product was good. The short film is visually appealing, has all the moving parts that it needs, and the two leads did a good job with the tasks that they were given. That said, the film was a bit heavy-handed, which I get into down below, but I walked into it with the expectation it was going to be a lot because Taylor Swift is many things and none of them is subtle.
I was also left with a lot of questions. The main one being that I would probably give my right foot to know if the scarf mentioned in the song and shown in the video ever existed. Obviously, there have been some embellishments to this break-up over time, but the scarf seems to be a sticking point. I would’ve loved it if this entire film was shot from the point of view of that scarf.
Rich: LOL. For what it’s worth, Jake Gyllenhaal’s sister Maggie Gyllenhaal claimed in 2017 to know nothing about a scarf that was left at her place. (“It’s totally possible. I don’t know.”)
Regarding “All Too Well” more broadly, I am about as far as from a Swiftie as a person can get without having actual contempt for Taylor, and so I hope it really says something that I think this project is great. I think as a director, she really nails the intoxicating (and anxiety-provoking) nature of newness. I really felt the going-upstate-in-fall vibes. I’ve done that and in very little time, Swift and her actors really capture what it feels like to spend a relatively brief time in varying close quarters.What I’m most impressed with is the accountability that I’m perceiving. I really can’t figure out Swift’s intention here—maybe you can help me out—but I do understand her to be petty and on a perpetual mission to settle scores. That said, when I watch what is largely taken to be a thinly veiled recounting of the three or so months that she dated Jake Gyllenhaal in 2010, I don’t see the (typical) narrative of: “The guy who broke up with me is the bad guy of our story.” That’s something that really grates on my nerves as a pop-culture spectator. Outside of extreme circumstances (like abuse), that’s rarely the case, and in fact, simple stories that go “this one thing caused our breakup” are rarely true. It’s what’s sometimes referred to as the “narrative fallacy.” Life is often way too complex for a simple blame game, and I’m not getting a simple blame game here. I’m seeing a relationship that would never have lasted, and I’m seeing the narrator own up to ways that she contributed to the dissolution. This is especially clear in the short film* when who we are to assume is the Taylor character blows up at the presumed Jake counterpart for dropping her hand during a dinner with his friends. It may have been callous on his part, but making it a thing was the wrong move on hers, and even if Taylor’s intention isn’t quite aligned with my reading, I feel like I’ve been given enough material to be able to conclude that this relationship was not meant to be, partly because of how both of them acted. That’s mature and bespeaks a level of accountability that reminds me of Joni Mitchell, even if Taylor’s specific and mundane lyrics never achieve anything near the poetry of Joni’s dissections of love.
I have to believe that at 31, Swift looks back on her 20-year-old self in a relationship with a man almost 10 years her senior, and realizes the age difference alone was going to make it very difficult for this relationship to work out. (Does this fact still make her want to die, as the lyrics she wrote at 22 state?) I have to wonder if the outsized response to a brief fling (and again: this is all going with the accepted narrative that this song is an autobiographical account of her relationship with Gyllenhaal, which may be a foolhardy premise, but I’m going with it because what are we all if not flawed?), is the product of someone who has it all not getting something that she wanted and so it becomes and stays a huge deal through the lens of entitlement. I certainly do not believe that a 20-year-old was “the only real thing” a 29-year-old had ever known, and I have to believe that Jake has known many real things since.