In Stages | Matty Healy x Taylor Swift

"I fell in love with her in stages, my whole life."

When Matty and Taylor meet in art school, they are complete opposites. Matty is aloof, restless, and cynical; he wants to make art that is disruptive, and imagines himself as the face of a new, reactionary artistic movement. Taylor, meanwhile, takes a more conventional path, facing misogyny from her peers who feel her work is too earnest, too pleading, and too "much."

Matty begins his undergraduate career by writing Taylor off. Taylor, meanwhile, finds him and his crowd overly pretentious. But over the course of several years -and several high-tension crits - the two begin to notice the myriad of similarities between their work, and their mutual, obsessive desire: to be publicly loved. With this desire in mind, can they ever be friends? Lovers? Or will it always end with them hating each other?