| Brighter Days Ahead | |
|---|---|
 Official poster | |
| Directed by | |
| Written by |
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| Based on | Eternal Sunshine by Ariana Grande |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | Ariana Grande |
| Cinematography | Jeff Cronenweth |
| Edited by | Luis Caraza |
| Music by | Ariana Grande |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | Republic Records |
Release date |
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Running time | 26 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Brighter Days Ahead is a 2025 Americanmusicalscience fictiondramashort film written and directed byChristian Breslauer andAriana Grande, the latter in her directorial debut. It is an accompanying piece to Grande's seventh studio albumEternal Sunshine (2024) and itsreissue, which shares the same subtitle as the film.[1][2][3][4]
Grande first teased a short film in an October 2024Vanity Fair interview while promotingWicked (2024).[5] She continued to tease the album's deluxe edition in various interviews and public appearances[6][7][8][9][10] before announcing it on March 10, 2025.[11] She teased the short film two days prior, on March 8, 2025[12] before announcing it via an Instagram post on March 12, 2025. In the teaser trailer she posted alongside the announcement, it was also revealed that Grande would be reprising her role as Peaches, a character she introduced in the music video for "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)", with the short film being a sequel to that work.[1][4]
Seventy years after successfully erasing the memory of her time with an ex-boyfriend,[a] Peaches sits in the waiting room of Brighter Days Inc. and signs an electronic consent form. A nurse takes her into a room that would allow her to relive four of her most valuable memories for the final time. She begins her journey by looking at old videos of her family that were captured during her childhood ("Intro (End of the World)").
Each of Peaches' remaining memories are immediately destroyed after they are relived. She continues with the second memory, which is focused on her career as a singer ("Eternal Sunshine" / "Dandelion"). In the third memory, Peaches wakes up in a destroyed and flooded home. She comes across two important items as she examines the damages: a teddy bear and a necklace ("Twilight Zone"). Peaches leaves her home to find that her entire neighborhood had been demolished. She walks directly towards aUFO and isabducted ("Supernatural").
The fourth and final memory is told from the perspective of Peaches' father, who founded Brighter Days. He is stricken with grief following the death of his daughter who was torn apart and finds himself reliving past memories of his own, such as the time when he gave her the aforementioned necklace. After collecting Peaches' heart in aLondon pub, and her brain in a pile of rubble, her father places the organs inside the body of a woman created in his daughter's image. It takes several attempts before he successfullybrings her to life through music and electricity ("Hampstead"). The older Peaches is content with her session. In the final scene, a younger Peaches recalls a time when someone told her to live each day as if it were her last. An acoustic rendition of "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)", recorded atJungle City Studios, plays during the end credits.
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Following the97th Academy Awards, where Grande was nominated forBest Supporting Actress for her role asGlinda inWicked (2024), Grande changed the name of her second Instagram account, formerly known as@Sweetener, to@BrighterDays, the name of the fictional memory erasure clinic that appeared in the music video for "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)".[14] To mark the one year anniversary of the release ofEternal Sunshine, Grande unveiled a pre-save link for the deluxe edition and released a teaser trailer for the short film. In the teaser trailer, a box which contains various items seen in the "We Can’t Be Friends (Wait For Your Love)" music video can be seen burning, before flickering to a shot of the items torn apart on the floor.[12]
Grande then officially announced the deluxe repackage ofEternal Sunshine, subtitledBrighter Days Ahead, on March 10, 2025, for release on March 28.[11] Two days later, Grande announced an accompanying short film via an Instagram post in which she released another teaser trailer. In this trailer, a voice can be heard saying "Welcome back, Peaches." before flickering to various shots of Grande.[4] The film’s poster was released via the@BrighterDays Instagram account.[15] On March 23, 2025, Grande announced limited screenings of the short film in four U.S. cities on March 30, 2025; her hometown,Boca Raton,Chicago,Los Angeles, andNew York City.[16] Grande released two more teasers on March 25 and March 27, 2025. In the former, a locket featuring a photo of a younger Grande is held in someone's hand.[17] In the latter, it shows a futuristic-esque version of the Brighter Days clinic—as seen in the "We Can't Be Friends (Wait for Your Love)" music video—while zooming in on a woman in a wheelchair, a series of rapid shots take place in which we see an aged-version of Grande's hands, leading to believe Grande will portray an older version of her character, Peaches.[18]
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| Related articles |
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