The video for Ariana Grande’s new single, “we can’t be friends (wait for your love),” features the star recreating the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, which inspired the title of her new album, eternal sunshine.
The 2004 movie stars Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet as an estranged couple who undergo a process to erase each other’s memories of the other, thereby avoiding the pain of a breakup. In the video, Ariana, playing a woman called Peaches, does the same: She’s hooked up to some equipment, and the process begins.
She relives each memory as it’s being erased, including one that seems lifted from the movie Sixteen Candles: She and her boyfriend sit together on a table with a birthday cake in between them. There’s also a memory based on one of Eternal Sunshine‘s most famous images: She and her boyfriend lie on their backs together in the snow.
Right before the procedure ends, Peaches starts to panic and reconsider her decision, but it eventually finishes, and a happy Peaches walks out of the clinic and right past her ex, who’s with another girl.
As for the song, Ariana sings about suppressing her feelings for someone because it would cause trouble. She sings, “We can’t be friends but I’d like to just pretend/you cling to your papers and pens/ wait until you like me again/wait for your love/My love, I’ll wait for your love.”
eternal sunshine is out now.
Copyright © 2024, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.