If you’d only just wrapped your head around which Phoebe is Waller-Bridge and which is Bridgers, then you’re out of luck – the pair have just teamed up to initiate mass confusion everywhere.
In possibly the most 2020 move ever – in the best way – Phoebe Waller-Bridge has directed the video for Phoebe Bridgers’ Savior Complex, which also stars Normal People’s Paul Mescal. Bridgers has been open about her love of Fleabag’s Waller-Bridge, even appearing on the cover of Under The Radar wearing “the jumpsuit”. According to a release, the feeling was mutual, and the pair of Phoebes connected over email to talk over ideas for the video.
Phoebe Bridgers has had as busy a 2020 as Waller-Bridge had 2019: just last week she was nominated for four Grammys, she released a strings-only EP last month, she announced the launch of her own imprint Saddest Factory and she just covered Goo Goo Dolls’ Iris with Maggie Rogers, raising thousands of dollars. Even with all that off the back of a year of promoting and releasing lauded album Punisher, she’s not content.
The video for Savior Complex, shot entirely in black and white, features a beat-up Paul Mescal going on an adventure alongside a gorgeous new actress that the release calls an “exceptional new talent”, a Papillon dog known only as “Charlotte”. Bridgers appears throughout the world, driving a tractor and popping up in photos. After stealing a car, Mescal winds up at a hotel entirely staffed by Phoebe Bridgers before finding himself seemingly robbed and left for dead by the crime duo of her and Charlotte.
The video is fun and silly with just a touch of the depth and feeling that both Phoebes are known for. While Mescal is everyone’s favourite star of 2020, it’s likely that Charlotte, with her unknowable gaze and fluffy ears, is likely to steal the show. We’re excited to see her step out on her own.
