Miley Cyrus has never been any stranger to controversy in her post-Hannah Montana jailbreak, evoking media furor at every turn with pole dancing at the Teen Choice Awards, twerking on Robin Thicke in next to nothing and smoking salvia on camera, to name a few. Thus, a little car chase isn’t something to ruffle her feathers as she gamely engages in this classic music video and film narrative for her latest song, a collaboration with Mark Ronson called “Nothing Breaks Like A Heart.”
For the duration, Miley is hotly pursued by those who would try to hem her in once more–specifically the police lusting for her outlaw blood. Opening on a shot of a little girl playing innocently with a pair of bullets (an image all too disarming for how “natural” it looks and feels in America), the sound of sirens fills the air as a slew of police cars barrel down the I-65 (telling us that Miley is in central U.S. territory), a helicopter hovers above the city and the camera pans to the numerous and multi-generational fans Miley has accumulated over the course of her journey, comprised of being described as, “Her destination remains unknown. I will say that one thing we’ve been noticing again is it’s a very slow pursuit. Miley’s car is being followed by a number of law enforcement vehicles.” So it is, as she is somehow still meticulously put together after all this time in a silver lamé number and a single side braid.
With an overhead shot that finds Miley peeking out of the sunroof, the dance rhythm commences in its uncanny similar tune to Dolly Parton’s famed “Jolene.” The track thematically bears a similar quality as well, with Miley ruing, “This world can hurt you/It cuts you deep and leaves a scar/Things fall apart, but nothing breaks like a heart.” Speaking to a sort of anti-“We Appreciate Power” message, Cyrus and Ronson remind us that the only thing of value in this world is the most fragile of all.
Miley unearths this in her various encounters with the everymen and everywomen of the country, her invisible Ebenezer Scrooge abilities allowing her car to dip into different structures and ruminate on the delicacy of emotions once the heart has been trifled with. At one point stopped inside a nightclub, the camera holds on a broken disco ball in the shape of a heart that also serves as the single’s album artwork. Crashing through walls unseen whenever she pleases, Miley also doesn’t even need to drive her car most of the time, taking a moment to flash us her arse as she relaxes and ruminates on the ruin in the backseat. The little girls of America, meanwhile, have definitely taken a shine to her persona, putting on their Miley Snapchat masks and taking to the shooting range in reverence for her outlaw ways.
While stopped in one of said shooting ranges, a bullet is slowed down as it heads in Miley’s unfazed direction, hurtling past her face. Not that she would seem to care if it hit her anyway, for what’s the point of going on now that the mechanism is broken? Men, too, can seem to relate, with one fan touting Miley for President on his arms, and another writing “Miley” on his teeth in the same style as Maurizio Cattelan’s famed “SHIT” image. In the end, the car rolls in a slow motion blaze of glory with Miley sitting in the back looking as though she’s been through worse. Ironically, she materializes unscathed, appearing at the end in crucifixion pose with the car as her cross and love as her metaphorical nails. It’s all as though to say, once the heart has been maimed, one is both simultaneously weaker and stronger. Weak for never being able to love again, and strong for being immune to essentially anything of an emotional bent.
Getting back to her country roots in a way she perhaps never has, “Nothing Breaks Like A Heart,” is well-suited to the heartbreak nature of classic country in the spirit of Patsy Cline (plus, “Tennessee” gets name checked, so how could it not be bona fide country?). Listen for yourself below.
