The music video for Olivia Rodrigo’s “deja vu,” directed by Allie Avital, starts out with a thoroughly scenic landscape: azure blue waves gently lapping up against the Malibu coastline. There’s a glossy sheen to the other things we see soon after: the older-edition car driving down the highway, the classy scarf tied around Rodrigo’s head Old Hollywood-style, the ornate pink script that announces the music video’s title. It’s the perfect set-up for the music video’s twist. This coastal paradise is actually the backdrop for a rather eerie story: the protagonist’s (Olivia Rodrigo) stalker-like obsession with her ex’s seemingly perfect new girl (Talia Ryder).
Early in the video, we see the obsession unfold. Rodrigo’s drive overlooking the rocky Malibu beaches is interrupted by what feels like a ghost, as she catches a glimpse of a flickering image of Ryder’s character in the backseat through her rear-view mirror. When Rodrigo’s character arrives at her destination, it’s Ryder’s house. Rodrigo peers through the window to watch Ryder’s character try on a new dress. Later, she then buys the exact same dress and goes home to try it on in front of her mirror. As she admires herself, she still sees Ryder’s character in the mirror, standing next to her — unavoidable.
We see Rodrigo’s character next in a room full of screens, which display memories of her relationship with her ex before Ryder’s character came into the picture. Some screens show Rodrigo’s face. Others show Ryder’s character replicating the previously cherished moments, sparkling day trips, and romantic ice cream dates. Considering the dark room the screens reside in, it almost feels like entering Rodrigo’s character’s subconscious. Unsurprisingly, it is a subconscious that has been overtaken by Ryder.
Rodrigo has discussed how “deja vu” is meant to outline the somewhat taboo feelings of obsession we feel towards the person an ex moves on with. The power of the music video is acknowledging the ways that this repressed urge gets twisted until it tears away at our own self-image. For Rodrigo, exploring emotions that may be deemed shameful is essential to her body of work. In her “good 4 u” music video, we see Rodrigo depict an unrestrained rage as a vengeful cheerleader. She reluctantly cheers on an ex’s shiny new post-breakup life, only to end by setting the ex’s house on fire as revenge for a too-quick recovery. In the incredibly famous heartbreak ballad “driver’s license,” Rodrigo’s character admits she hasn’t quite moved on from an ex. She replays a highlight reel of old memories, as she does with “deja vu.” But instead of being in Malibu, she sits in a room’s corner, alone, as a projector displays the melancholy words “you said forever” all over the walls.
What makes “deja vu” distinct, however, is its decision never to show the ex-lover in question, turning the absence into a tool to primarily analyze the protagonist’s relationship to herself — her insecurities, her desirability, and so on. Rodrigo uses the trope of stalking a lover’s new girl to explore the societal pressures for women to conform and compare, and to indirectly comment on the taboo against addressing that pressure directly. Often, we are forced to pass off jealousy as admiration in life. The “deja vu” music video analyzes the underlying currents of rage and insecurity beneath that admiration.
The color palette of the video shows an old Hollywood nostalgia and nostalgia for a past period of Rodrigo’s character’s life. Rodrigo’s old romance was a world of pastels, a hazy, rose-colored look at love. The music video opening shows Rodrigo’s character driving to Malibu, licking a strawberry ice cream cone. It sets the emotional tone for the video’s universe: sugary-sweet with idyllic backgrounds. Later, we see an empty pool Rodrigo’s character lies in that is painted gentle blue with clouds to look like the sky. Other moments have a similarly quaint feeling.
Later, these backgrounds, representing scenic moments of Rodrigo’s character’s old relationship, stand in stark contrast to the female stalker fantasy that Rodrigo and Avital build. But while the color palette feels romantic, the editing is harsh. Quick transitions to images of Ryder’s character show how she has intruded these memories. In many scenes, the editing leaves the same psychedelic feeling as the song: Ryder’s character’s image feels jarring and out-of-place. It’s as if Ryder is a hallucination, a horrible mistake in the previous fairy-tale landscape of Rodrigo’s recollections.
But in terms of the story itself, Ryder’s character is there to stay. While the “deja vu” music video very easily could have been a simple story of obsession, the dynamic between the two leads draws inspiration from shows that invoke a back-and-forth dynamic, like Killing Eve. As the video continues, we unexpectedly begin to see Ryder’s character watching Rodrigo’s character in return. Ryder stalks her ex’s old girl, crouching behind rocks to surveil her at the beach. In the same room where Rodrigo watched Ryder try on a new dress, Ryder has secretly hung a polaroid of Rodrigo on her corkboard. Both characters, then, have fallen into the obsession of stalking the competition for their object of affection. Ryder is as consumed with obsession as Rodrigo.
It seems to be a comment on the universality of insecurity. Ryder is asking the same questions of desirability as Rodrigo. The urge manifests, however, as obsessive admiration, stalking, and imitation. These are often some of the few tools in the arsenal left for young women trying to cope in a world that is inundated with unattainable standards, and is terrified of authentic conversations around insecurity.
This relationship is also a discussion of sexuality. Rodrigo’s character has been replaced, which is a blow to her idea of her own desirability. But the line is very blurry here. Does Rodrigo want to be Ryder’s character? Or does she want to be with Ryder’s character? Rodrigo’s character’s intentions all get tangled in a web of desire, fantasy, and confusion — the hallmark emotions of a teen grappling with questions of sexuality. Much of the image we have in the teen years comes from quickly devoured thoughts, drawn from magazine spreads and Instagram explore pages. In “deja vu”, that oft-hidden process gets to see the light of day. Rodrigo’s character wants to figure out what makes her desirable, as well as what she herself desires. Neither is clear to her, but both ultimately lead her back to Ryder, in an obsessive quest to ultimately try and understand herself and her own desires. These questions all help shape the sensual, charged relationship between the two leads.
In its end, the music video returns us back to Rodrigo’s subconscious. Rodrigo’s character is unable to take the emotional overload anymore, and in the ending scenes, she smashes the screens containing her memories. Rodrigo’s is looking at herself and then destroying herself, in an interesting take on self-worth and loss. Perhaps the most damaging part of this new relationship has not been the loss of her object of affection, but the inescapable questions of envy that accompanied it. Rodrigo’s character is left wishing she could destroy the memories, and maybe destroy her new corrupted self-image as well. In the end, despite Rodrigo’s character’s best efforts, she can’t: Ryder’s face still winks out at Rodrigo through one of the screens even after the smashing has finished.
As you watch the beautiful memories of Malibu scenery unravel into Rodrigo’s destructive decisions in the end, you can see the careful attention that went into Avital’s world-building around the stalker plot — all the way down to the anger Rodrigo feels in the end, as she realizes that memories of strawberry ice cream might not always taste sweet. Through its initial summer-y nostalgia that then turns ugly, the “deja vu” music video takes on loss and anger in a refreshingly authentic and unexpected way. It challenges the notions that these are merely the silly whims of teenage girls, instead depicting a breakup as a chance to ask real questions of self-worth, desirability, loss, and growth.
