Just hours after Taylor Swift released the full, ten-minute version of “All Too Well,” she dropped a short film to further tell the story. The nearly 15-minute movie, which was directed by Taylor herself, stars Dylan O’Brien and Sadie Sink as the lead characters. Although Taylor has never confirmed that “All Too Well” is about her breakup from Jake Gyllenhaal, the evidence is crystal clear. In the film, Dylan portrays the ‘Jake’ character, while Sadie is a young Taylor, who dated Jake for a few months when she was 20 (he is nine years older).
The video starts with the ultimate autumn love story between Sadie and Dylan, taking place in upstate New York. The two makeout on the leave-filled streets and in his home, but things fall apart during a dinner with his friends, when Sadie feels like she was being ignored by Dylan. It leads to a blowout expletive-filled fight, which ends with Dylan’s character apologizing.
The story continues on an uphill trajectory, with the two even ending up in bed together. However, eventually, Dylan breaks up with Sadie and she’s devastated. The next few minutes portray Sadie breaking down in tears as she mourns the breakup, while Dylan is looking back in regret. Then, the story flashes forward 13 years, and Taylor is playing the older Sadie, who wrote a book about the story. As she signs copies of the book, he’s watching in the window — and wearing her old scarf.
“All Too Well” was originally released as a five and a half minute track on Taylor’s 2012 album, Red. It instantly became a beloved, fan-favorite song, and took on a life of its own. At one point, it was revealed that “All Too Well” had been cut down from 10 minutes in order to make it on the album, and fans have been begging Taylor to release the full version for years. On Nov. 12, she dropped the re-recorded version of Red, and finally gave fans their wish with the 10 minute “All Too Well.”
The never-before-heard additional lyrics give more insight into Taylor and Jake’s breakup. Taylor reveals in the song that Jake blamed the pair’s age difference for the breakup. She also recalls the time that he skipped her 21st birthday party, which she sings about on another track from the album, “The Moment I Knew.” In addition to re-recorded versions of the entire original Red album, Red (Taylor’s Version) features six other never-before-heard songs that didn’t make the original track list. The record also includes Taylor’s versions of “Better Man” and “Babe,” which didn’t make the original Red, but were previously recorded by Little Big Town and Sugarland, respectively.