Taylor Swift’s Mutual Lovefest at the Village East Theater

So, what did I learn while attending a listening party for Taylor Swift’s new album, “The Life of a Showgirl,” on Oct. 4 at the Village East movie theater?

I had two profound reactions: a) Taylor is really, really smart, and b) she is also the ultimate crowd-pleaser, in the tradition of her fellow arena rockers, Paul McCartney and Bruce Springsteen.

The turnout at the theater was impressive and was apparently being played out in theaters everywhere as the one-weekend-only movie, “The Official Release Party of a Showgirl,” played in 3,702 theaters across the U.S. and Canada.

The show pulled in an estimated $33 million in ticket sales in the Friday to Sunday slot, according to Comscore, which tracks box office scores. The New York Times said the whole 89-minute show “was less a movie than a collection of bonus features on a DVD.” And yet fans flocked to it, alerted primarily by Swift’s social media over the preceding two weeks that eschewed traditional ad campaigns that most Hollywood releases rely on. I wouldn’t be surprised if this sparks similar events from other stars. For one weekend, it crushed another more traditional new release, “The Smashing Machine,” which starred Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Emily Blunt, which had been heavily promoted but came in third against the Swifties, the name given to her most ardent fans.

Taylor is a trailblazer. No wonder she remains the biggest pop-culture phenomenon since Michael Jackson in the 1980s and Beatlemania in the mid-1960s.

Taylor invited fans to a “dazzling soirée,” in which she discusses in depth the stories and meanings behind all 12 of the songs on her new album as well as some recollections of her record-setting Eras tour of a few years ago.

The movie is a kind of love letter to her immensely loyal fan base from a billionaire and 2023 Time magazine Person of the Year and, oh yeah, 14-time Grammy winner who has taken home the coveted Album of the Year prize four times, a record.

I remembered well the audience that had gathered at the Imax theater on Second Avenue and East 30th Street to watch the concert film of her Eras tour. So many youngsters and young women and mothers of the children had dressed up in Taylor garb and flashed her trademark bracelets, as if they were attending one of the football-stadium extravaganza concerts around the world, and not merely a film.

But this crowd at the Village East was more thoughtful and less rapturous. You might say they were older and wiser, perhaps in the spirit of Taylor herself in 2025. The Times described Taylor’s new album as a sort of victory lap, following the mania surrounding the Eras tour. I would agree with that description.

The audience in the East Village theater was mostly made up of adoring women in their teens and early 20s, but Taylor’s popularity among fans of all ages is hardly waning.

Consider the devotion of a Swiftie named Jennifer Naidich, a psychologist in Midtown Manhattan who encouraged me to go to one of the presentations at the Village East. (The theater showed the film often throughout Thursday, Friday, and Saturday).

Dr. Naidich has been listening for hidden meanings and symbolism on the new album, which dropped on Oct. 2 on streaming services. There has been a debate among the Swifties as to whether Taylor, who recently announced her engagement to Kansas City Chiefs football star Travis Kelce, has forfeited some of her natural songwriting edge and performing intensity in favor of a happy and cuddly disposition.

“This surely is new and different,” Dr. Naidich allowed. “I had to listen to a little bit more and go inward to see how I felt about Taylor’s new music. Taylor is raw and authentic, as usual, just in a new warm light. She’s glowing from the inside out.”

But some fans are apprehensive that Taylor is too settled to make memorable art. Like it or not, suffering often sparks great music or painting or literature or acting.

Taylor would hardly be the first icon to encounter this kind of resistance from even diehard fans. When Bob Dylan left Greenwich Village and settled in Woodstock with his wife Sara and their growing family (they ultimately were the parents of five children), Dylan’s fans dissed the old protest-songs maestro for becoming domesticated. Rolling Stone famously began a review of his Self-Portrait album with the line, “What is this sh*t?”

While Taylor has yet to face such wrath, some members of her audience may be underwhelmed.

“I will appreciate the album and will listen to it, but I was hoping for lyrics that matched ‘1989,’ ” said Reese McQueen, a graduate student who saw a concert (with her mother!) during the Eras tour at Met Life Field in New Jersey. “That album is considered her peak pop performance, and these lyrics failed to measure up. After ‘Folklore’ and ‘Evermore,’ everything has felt like a drop-off in lyrical quality,” she said, adding “only slightly.”

At the Village East, the overwhelming audience sentiment was gratitude—mutually. The throng was thrilled to see their idol again, even if it was in a movie and not on a stage. And Taylor loved them right back.

“Most important,” Dr. Naidich pointed out, “Taylor remains loyal to her fans in making them the essential theme of the movie [and] bringing them into her world, making them feel a part of the process beginning to end—and at the end, thanking them for taking part and taking the time to come to see the show.”

Fittingly, the movie ended with Taylor blowing kisses to her fans.