Paris Hilton here presents us with an unbearable act of docu-self-love, avowedly a behind-the-scenes study of her second studio album, Infinite Icon, and where she’s at as a musician, survivor and mom. But maybe there is, in fact, nothing behind the scenes; judging by this, the scenes are all there is: Insta-exhibitionism, empty phrases and show.
Hilton’s second album no doubt has its admirers and detractors, and her fans are perfectly happy with it. But this film, for which she is executive producer, is an indiscriminate non-curation of narcissism and torpid self-importance that seems to go on and on and on for ever; the longest two hours of anyone’s life, finally signing off with a splodge of uninteresting and unedited concert footage.
Hilton has certainly been the victim of duplicitous and misogynist media coverage, with tabloid paparazzi using and abusing her for profit, and the film’s one interesting move is to interview Sarah Ditum, the author of Toxic: Women, Fame and the Noughties on this very subject. But the analytical note is soon abandoned, and the reality of her enormously wealthy family background is coyly omitted. (It was more prominent in her previous film, 2020’s This Is Paris, part of the reality-TV persona that she now considers herself to have outgrown.)
Like that earlier film, Infinite Icon touches on the emotional and sexual abuse Hilton suffered as a wayward teen at the notorious youth psychiatric facility, Provo Canyon School in Utah. Then there is her ADHD; in one of the film’s semi-unguarded moments, she yells at someone trying to interrupt her: “I have ADHD, don’t tell me to pause!” But all these issues, all the allyship and advocacy, look like yet more brand accessories.
