Charli XCX isn’t the only one to be feeling the spirit of Emily Brontë by way of Emerald Fennell lately. For it seems Ellie Goulding has tapped into that “vibe” as well via the video for “Destiny,” her second single of 2025 (and her first solo one since “By the End of the Night” from Higher Than Heaven) following “Save My Love,” her collaboration with Marshmello and Avaion back in June. “Destiny” has a similarly romantic motif to “Save My Love,” with the latter’s chorus declaring, “I’ll save my love for you/I’ll save my love for you/Just tell me if you’re ready/‘Cause if you’re ready, I am too/I’ll save my lovе for you/It’s all for you” (and yes, Goulding and co. definitely pulled some lyrics from the Janet and Whitney [via Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr.] oeuvre here). Except that, unlike “Save My Love,” “Destiny” isn’t infused with such regrets as, “And maybe, I should’ve held you closer/On the nights that I had the chance” (here, too, Goulding and co. seem to lack original lyrical ideas in that this smacks of “Always on My Mind” [particularly the Pet Shop Boys’ version]).
No, instead, “Destiny” is all contentment with and gratitude for the love Goulding has found—not with Casper Jopling, her now ex-husband, but with herself. A revelation that seems to be recurring among British women in pop music right now. Case in point, Lily Allen with West End Girl. And yes, Goulding, like so many, listened to the record and had nothing but praise for it, and Allen, not only calling her a “poet,” but also remarking, “I think we’re very different as artists, but we came up at the same time, so I’ve always had a lot of respect for her and her honesty. I can relate to her right now in the sense that I don’t have any urge to be mysterious at the moment. I have an urge to talk about my life, and I want people to relate. I want to feel like there’s some kind of camaraderie with women who are going through it.”
And even if the song was made for (the credits of) the anime series Clevatess, yes, there does remain that “kind of camaraderie with women” in that the video for “Destiny,” directed by Floria Sigismondi (who previously directed Goulding’s surreal and serene “Anything Could Happen” video), reads like a bodice-ripping paperback come to life. In fact, the song might as well be called “Desire” in this context. That much is apparent from the start of the video, as a black stallion runs through fields before Sigismondi cuts to a brief shot of Goulding looking toward the ceiling as she lies back on a couch before another cut to her new boyfriend, Beau Minniear (thus far a “bit” actor), standing shirtless—to showcase his musculature, obviously—in front of some photography lights. The camera then ogles him further with the kind of “objectifying” shot one usually expects of a male director when it comes to filming a woman’s body. But here, both Sigismondi and Goulding turn that concept on its ear, having no trouble parading Minniear’s corpo in all its erotic novel glory.
Indeed, the eroticism only continues to escalate as Goulding goes from her Romy in Babygirl pose with Minniear lying at her feet in front of the couch to sitting at a romantic table (drenched in candle wax) with him as he sensually licks his knife (used to cut the pomegranate in his hand)—after all, one of the lyrics is, “Kissing the knife, falling”—and Goulding licks an egg off a plate like she’s Madonna drinking from the bowl of milk in “Express Yourself.” She also has at it with a fig, with Sigismondi cutting back and forth between the two eating in a manner that is, let’s say, not exactly related to a food-oriented kind of hunger. That much is made doubly apparent when they start eating some of the pearls strewn about on the table as Goulding croons, “I’ve seen a lot, I’ve seen it all/I hit the lotto when I found you/I’ve seen a lot with you on top/I hit the lotto when I found you/You.”
The “you” here patently being Minniear. And for those who were initially scandalized by the revelation of their “togetherness” earlier this year, it wasn’t just because Minniear is ten years her junior, but because not everyone seemed to realize that Goulding had separated from her husband “some time ago” (a.k.a. in 2024). This being part of the reason why Goulding commented of “Destiny” to NME, “This song felt like I could really accept things. It felt like it was making way for something better, and it made me realize that some things are destined for you.” In other words, sometimes a younger, hotter cock is destined for you. In a world called Every Woman’s Wet Dream. And one that Goulding has rendered to the screen with a very Wuthering Heights-inspired touch indeed. Not to mention a dash of Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow-Up thrown in for good measure, with Goulding taking on the “David Bailey” role (whose character name in the movie was changed to “Thomas” and played by David Hemmings) in certain scenes as she mounts Minniear and takes his picture from an “overhead” position while he lies supine beneath her.
In between these moments, Goulding lounges in front of some cracked glass (the crack presented in a “spiderweb” shape), with Sigismondi then cutting to the romantic exterior of the “manor” that Goulding now stands in front of—her head wrapped in a sheer veil. All the while, the viewer has been hearing the verse, “I got this feeling the prize belongs to me/Don’t I hit the ceiling?/These lights can only mean…/Destiny/it’s never all that deep/Unleash the rain/It was cynical of me/To stay out of the chase/Now I’ll stay in the right place/I’m just saying it might be/Destiny.” Then, Minniear, too, shows up outside in a veil so that they can share the same kind of “sanitized” kiss as the duo in René Magritte’s “The Lovers” painting.
At the end of the video, the stallion from the beginning reappears next to a giant chandelier that’s now also outside the property, just as Minniear “coincidentally” stops appearing (with one scene transition in particular suggesting the horse and Minniear could be one and the same). Can it be that he’s also a magical being that turns into a horse that runs to her whenever she calls? It would certainly appeal to the “romantasy” trend. As it does for Goulding to sing during the bridge, “Who cares what I’ve lost?/I know the cure and the cause/I got cut from your sharp/But I’m still unmarked/And who cares what you’ve done?/With a body like God” (on a side note, using God’s “hotness” as an analogy seems to be having a little moment with British women as well, what with MARINA also declaring, “You’re hotter than God” on her Princess of Power album).
And so, there you have it: Goulding’s destiny, manifested in the form of a man who belongs on the cover of a Suzanne Enoch book. And when she also mentioned to NME, “We’re never gonna escape pain; we have to use it for good and make it into something,” the unspoken part was that she made it into a video that serves as the ultimate offshoot of a “Wuthering Heights fantasy.” In effect, Charli XCX has some competition.
