Beyoncé’s Renaissance movie review: A first look at her dazzling, spectacular concert film

Everything appears flawless, but the US pop titan offers a behind-the-scenes look at just how much work that takes

“I have nothing to prove to anyone at this point,” Beyoncé declares in her new tour documentary, Renaissance. Charting her record-breaking 2023 tour, this film offers an inside-look (written, directed and produced by Beyoncé) at the hive required to build something as extraordinary as those live performances. Because Beyoncé doesn’t just put on a show. She puts on the show.

It was blamed for the surprise rise in inflation in Sweden back in June. Combined with the equally dominating force of Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour, the Renaissance shows sent the US economy temporarily surging out of its pandemic slump. Around 2.7 million concertgoers attended Renaissance over the course of five months, while the tour is estimated to have grossed close to half a billion dollars. She’s that girl.

At the glittering London premiere of her documentary, Beyoncé is supported by all manner of celebrity guests, including fellow pop titan Taylor Swift, who arrives in a sheath of silver. Inside, phones are stowed away in lockbags, while audience members are handed champagne, salted popcorn and Smarties (British chocolate, nice touch). Then, gasps as the woman of the moment (of the year, of the decade!) walks onstage and thanks those who followed her “formal opulence” dress code to the letter.

“Thank you for coming, thank you for dressing up,” she says, adding how proud she feels that the film is released on World Aids Day, in honour of her late uncle Jonny. “Feel free to dance, sing, cry... thank you.”

For anyone who doubts the neccessity of a concert film, well, prepare to stand corrected. This isn’t just a highlights reel. It’s a rare and remarkable look at the staggering, Spielberg-style production that goes into putting on a show like Renaissance.

Each two-and-a-half hour event involves myriad costume and set changes, a full troupe of dances, and a setlist spanning the 41-year-old’s career to date, from her Destiny’s Child days to her surprise 2013 album, Beyoncé, which celebrates its 10-year anniversary in two weeks. Renaissance the album, released last year, pays dazzling homage to the Black and queer pioneers of post-Seventies house and disco while also celebrating her own sexual liberation. Songs such as “I’m That Girl” and “Cuff It” are delivered in a luxurious murmur, like a big cat stretching its limbs out after a good meal. “You hate me,” she purrs on “Cozy”... “because you want me.”

“When I am performing, I am nothing but free,” she says in the Renaissance film. “The goal for this tour is to create a place where everyone is free, and no one is judged. Unique.” Regardless of this, it is impossible to deny that Beyoncé has harnessed a level of perfectionism we rarely see in any art form. Not since Prince has a musician wielded such control over their live show. Whether she’s exhibiting vocal gymnastics on “Dangerously in Love” or rising into the air on a silver horse while wearing a diamond-encrusted harness (Lady Godiva meets Studio 54), everything appears flawless.

Singer has harnessed a perfectionism we rarely see anywhere else in tour documentary (AFP via Getty Images)

To achieve this, production has to be handled with the utmost precision. Beyoncé spent four years working with choreographers, designers, crew, sound engineers, medics, security and caterers in the build-up to the tour’s launch in Stockholm, Sweden, on 10 May. “In order to perform as many times as we perform, we have three stages,” she explains at one point in the film. “As one is getting set up, the other two stages are travelling to the next city and getting built.” Watching women and men dangle from harnesses, assembling giant installations and working out complex floor plans, is like watching an entirely new city being built in real time.

Beyoncé allows no room for error. Far from painting her as the benevolent queen, Renaissance shows her in all her business and creative glory. She grills her camera crew: why can’t they find a wider lense? Even when there are mistakes, she turns them into new triumphs. The sound cuts out: she seizes the opportunity for yet another dramatic outfit change.

Once the concert begins, for the audience it’s a case of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it. Dancers whirl around the stage; a disco ball descends from the rafters; Beyoncé rides in on a lunar rover while her 11-year-old daughter, Blue Ivy, dances in front. The tempo and sheer spectacle of it all leaves you breathless. No one compares.