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Because the only thing more unshakeable as a “blanket trend” than the 90s is the 2000s, it’s no surprise that FKA Twigs, an 80s baby who came of age at the turn of the century, should revert to the aesthetic of that decade for her latest offering on the music video front, “Predictable Girl.” As the second visual from Eusexua Afterglow (or just Afterglow, to those who want to make it simpler), the companion album to Eusexua, “Predictable Girl” is quite different from the more cinematic, Sean Baker-esque stylings of “Cheap Hotel.” Not to say that “Predictable Girl” isn’t without its cinematic qualities, starting with a shot of a “futuristic” (albeit) generic cityscape in black and white. In fact, the look here harkens back to the style of 2005’s Sin City (co-directed by Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller). Not just the black and white “on acid” effect (which eventually gives way to some color), but the sound of an anxiety-inducing siren in the background just before the angsty beats (co-produced by Twigs, Manni Dee, Tic, Sam Every-Baker and RougeHotel) thunderously bring the viewer inside the city. And the first person they see is FKA, looking as though she’s on a mission to either coolly take a hit out on someone or find the best club in town.
Strutting down the street in sunglasses, a pink bikini and a matching pink, let’s say, “moto top,” Twigs seems pulled right from the frames of Sin City (think: Jessica Alba as Nancy or Rosario Dawson as Gail). In the next instant, she’s barreling through a tunnel on her motorcycle. Where, almost immediately, the callback is to a similarly shot motorcycle scene in Britney Spears’ indelible 2003 video for “Toxic.” And yes, the “tunnel vision,” so to speak, here also is reminiscent of the predominant backdrop throughout Twigs’ “Striptease” video, also directed by Jordan Hemingway. Except, of course, rather than running through a tunnel and eventually “shedding her skin,” “Predictable Girl” is more “Charlie’s Angels [the 2000 movie] action” than arthouse film à la “Striptease.” And, in another “unwitting” nod to the decade, something about its “futuristic-from-an-00s-perspective” visual style shares a marked similarity to Jessica Simpson’s “Irresistible” video, released in 2001.
But, unlike Simpson, Twigs isn’t the lone “main girl” of the “narrative.” And, from the start, the credits indicate that Twigs has a “co-star,” of sorts, also spotlighting Shivawn Joubert, a dancer who previously worked the choreo in Twigs’ “Perfect Stranger” video. So it is that the person on the motorcycle that the viewer might initially think is Twigs actually turns out to be Joubert, who speeds through the city as the opening verse, “No one knows who you are/And I find that so frustrating/You’re more awkward than a stop-start animation/When you/Say you are/Not who you are/You got me so locked in/Need a crow bar,” sets the tone for this “dance,” as it were, between the two women.
And though Joubert might foolishly believe she can just “whiz past” Twigs on her bike, she obviously didn’t figure in the latter’s agility and The Matrix-esque maneuvering abilities (indeed, that movie appears to have a lot of influence on the visuals here as well). Thus, Twigs is able to mount the bike as easily as Boeing kills a whistleblower, soon “unmasking” the rider (a.k.a. taking off her helmet) to reveal Joubert, who does look very much like Twigs’ doppelgänger in this video.
Soon, the two are engaging in what can best be described as a sexual and violent tango, with their sensual stroking and touching being interchanged with pushing, grabbing and jostling (perhaps further emphasizing the fine line between sex and violence). It doesn’t take long for Twigs to gain control of the driver’s seat as she sings the suggestive chorus, “I’m a three-minute ride and an eighteen-minute walk/From the person I’m liking, I’m liking, I’m liking a lot.” Now shown alone on the bike, Hemingway intercuts scenes of Twigs in control on her own with scenes of her writhing around in conjunction with Joubert.
The interspersed groaning sound on the song might also sound familiar to those who have heard the intro to Tove Lo’s “Disco Tits.” To be sure, the entirety of Afterglow is something that Tove Lo would happily “sweat it out” to. Including the jarring, disjointed delivery of certain verses—e.g., “I don’t know who you are when I’m screaming your name/So you can’t have vindication/Who you are when I’m screaming your name/Bugatti car.” Yet, despite plugging Bugatti, it’s only this motorcycle that Twigs chooses to parade throughout the video, eventually “bathing in chrome” in a scene that then intercuts with her and Joubert on the bike—“as one” with both the machine and each other.
Around the two-minute-seventeen mark, things get even more 2000s in their aesthetic as the video transitions into an anime look, echoing the kind of visuals that Satoshi Kon popularized with works like Millennium Actress and Paprika. And one obvious reason that Twigs does choose to switch to animation is so that she can ramp up the action quotient. In this sense, too, it channels exactly what Madonna did in her 2000 video for “Music,” wherein about halfway through, Jonas Åkerlund switches to animation for the sake of “making” Madonna turn more superhero-y as she takes on various thugs and then proceeds to start kicking down various neon signs spelling out the titles of some of her previous hits.
Considering that Twigs is an obvious student of Madonna, it wouldn’t be out of the question that this aspect of the “Music” video slipped into her subconscious for “Predictable Girl.” Which ends on a very 2000s note as Twigs and Joubert’s universe abruptly “folds into itself,” back inside a chrome-looking, marble-sized ball that evidently contains the “city” (read: simulation) that the viewer just saw all of this take place in. As the “marble” starts to form, Twigs keeps insisting, “No, I’m not in love.” And if she is, it’s only for a night, at best. While she’s just searching for an afterglow.
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Genna Rivieccio
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