'driving home 2 u' review: Olivia Rodrigo performs 'Sour' on the road

Part documentary, part audience-free concert film and part tour rehearsal, Olivia Rodrigo's "driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)" finds 2021's breakthrough artist looking back at her year that was. 

That year started with "Driver's License," her brokenhearted teenage confessional, which took off like a rocket ship and topped Billboard's Hot 100 chart for eight straight weeks when she was still a senior in high school. It sent the Disney-trained actress and star of "High School Musical: The Musical — The Series" (if that title makes sense to you, congratulations!) into the pop stratosphere, and left her scrambling to record a debut album to meet the sudden demand.

That album, "Sour," only made her star brighter, and she's waltzing into next month's Grammy Awards with seven nominations, including Song, Record and Album of the Year and Best New Artist. 

Before all that — and before the 19-year-old launches her first tour — "driving home 2 u" finds Rodrigo performing the album's tracks in a handful of remote settings along the dusty road between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles, where much of "Sour" was conceived. 

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She does "Brutal" inside of a decommissioned jetliner in an airplane graveyard. "Enough for You" is performed in the middle of a forest, with Rodrigo playing a mirror-balled keyboard. Her No. 1 hit "Good 4 U" gets the classical treatment, accompanied by a full string section, inside Red Rock Canyon State Park in Cantil, California. 

And so on. (One gripe: Disney+ censors the F-bombs, one of Rodrigo's secret weapons of subversion.) There are clips of Rodrigo and producer Dan Nigro working out the songs on "Sour" in a cramped studio, but the clips are more like Instagram Stories outtakes than behind-the-scenes captures. 

Mostly it's about the performances, and director Stacey Lee drops Rodrigo in these off-the-beaten path locales which place her in a grittier context than her Disney background would suggest. The pandemic forced artists to get creative, filming and streaming performances in non-traditional locations, and "driving home 2 u" is a lively, often visually striking example of thinking outside the box when it comes to live presentation and venue. Is it a stand-in for seeing her live on her first tour? Not even close. But there will probably be a documentary for that, too. 

agraham@detroitnews.com

@grahamorama

'Olivia Rodrigo: driving home 2 u (a SOUR film)'

GRADE: B

Not rated: language 

Running time: 77 minutes

On Disney+