The Ed Sheeran Disney+ documentary has been out for a little over a month and that was our impression.
Documentary about a “normal” person
Viewers more aware of Ed Sheeran’s life than I am may be wondering how this Disney+-produced documentary managed to fill an entire series on the British singer in just four parts. Ed Sheeran’s philanthropy is huge, his fame precedes him, he’s one of the biggest male pop stars in the world, able to collect Wembley Stadium tickets this year; but for the twelfth time. Each of his albums became a #1 hit, he performed in almost all the major arenas of the world. She sings with Eminem, but said that Beyoncé would perform with him. Owns a pub (in his flat), married a school friend, still lives in Suffolk.
What topics do they cover?
His usual boy-next-door behavior is both his great strength and his limitations. We imagine him as a hardworking, very kind person. The documentary, which coincides with the high-profile lawsuit against him, goes a long way in making him appear even more human and likeable, highlighting the “not yet seen” through the people who accompany him daily in his life. : from his wife Cherry to her parents, John and Imogen. Of course, we are told the story of his rise to notoriety and how he went from word of mouth and online access to various prime time broadcasts across the United States. There are also home videos of Sheeran as a child. “I’m a special type, redhead, very short, English, country, stutterer and beatboxer… that type of person is not going to be a pop star,” he says. But his self-confidence never wavered: an absolute talent from the age of 15.
How is the sum of all this
The episodes have a very strong emotional impact, right from the title: “Amore”, “Perdita”… At first, the singer admits, he thought it was a documentary about the making of his fifth solo album Subtract. But the facts of life caught up with him, and the documentary suddenly took a very different direction. His wife Cherry talks about her cancer, and this is where the documentary deals with mortality in a very introspective way, not at all rhetorically. There is talk of a legacy left to the children in the event of her death. “I’m not just a music machine, I’m not just a robot that should come first,” Sheeran says instead. And in this work, by subtraction (as in the title of his latest work), all mortality is revealed, which is also the humanity of a man who never risked being overwhelmed by his global success. Recommended because it is not limited to glorifying the artist, but allows you to understand him as a person, which is often overlooked in documentaries about the life of artists.