Ariana Grande Transforms Into An Elderly Version Of Herself In New Short Film, ‘Brighter Days Ahead’

In the video, an elderly-appearing Grande is wheeled into a futuristic facility where she’s allowed to view four stored memories for the last and final time. If that premise sounds a little like the 2004 film “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind,” you’re spot-on. She’s playing Peaches again, a character she originally portrayed in last year’s “We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love),” only this is a much older version.

The “Spotless” connection is a natural; “Brighter Days” is a companion piece of art connected to her “Eternal Sunshine Deluxe: Brighter Days Ahead” album, which came out in March. The short film is directed by Grande and Christian Breslauer (who also directed videos for “We Can’t Be Friends” and “The Boy Is Mine,” which also released in 2024, as Rolling Stone reports).

In the video, memories are released like clear lottery balls down a ramp. Viewers then see everything from old family home movies (it’s hard to determine how much, if any, of them are actually Grande’s real-life home movies) to a modern day Grande singing “Eternal Sunshine.” She also gives young-Grande takes on recent songs “Dandelion,” “Twilight Zone,” “Supernatural,” and “Hampstead,” all of which tell different pieces of her history.

The description in the YouTube video notes that it’s been 70 years since Peaches was last seen (in her previous video), and she’s returned to Brighter Days for her memory visit.

“As Peaches embarks on this immersive journey, we watch her confront and heal certain wounds (personal and professional alike) that have made her who she is today,” the description reads.

“She reconnects with her younger self who had been patiently in the wings for over a decade, as she works her way through the challenges of fame (she is the daughter of the very famous Brighter Days Inc. founder/doctor), personal sensationalism (resulting in being torn apart by stray cats), and generational trauma,” the description continues. “In the end, with the help of her loved ones and art, she is able to come home to herself. She would do anything to experience it all again. However, there’s one catch: once a memory is relived, it is erased forever.”

And stay tuned until after the fourth memory is destroyed in the short film for a delightful last comment.

But why riff so hard on the Jim Carrey/Kate Winslet movie? As Grande told Apple Music in a 2024 interview, the mix of romance and memory was extremely powerful for her.

“I think the movie is so beloved because so many people can relate to knowing that something isn’t right, but loving so much, and wanting to stay, and wanting to figure it out, and that cycle that can happen in the film,” she said. “I think that’s why the film is so beloved. It’s because so many people can relate to it, and I think it kind of fell into place that these songs had little tidbits of that theme. I just felt really inspired by it.”

Grande is on quite a roll, thanks in part not just to the “Eternal Sunshine” release (and the “Deluxe” addition), but she was also nominated for an Academy Award in early 2025 for her work in “Wicked.”