Ed Sheeran is an unlikely pop star. The singer-songwriter rose to fame at an early age, scoring impressive chart numbers in his 20s on the strength of his musicianship and dogged determination alone. He's a ginger-haired dork who plays guitar — how could that person become an international superstar? This is the narrative the docuseries Ed Sheeran: The Sum of It All pushes from the start; yet, instead of the predictable biography covering the artist's early life and rise to stardom, the Disney+ series opts to give an intimate look at very recent events in the musician's life. This decision is probably due to Apple Music having already released a more conventional Ed Sheeran documentary in 2018 titled Songwriter.
The Sum of It All offers audiences a four-episode series that focuses on Sheeran's life during 2022, offering a glimpse of his everyday reality and the enticing promise of a look behind the curtain. The conceit is essentially a making-of series: the documentary crew follows Sheeran around for a year as he creates the album Subtract, which is scheduled for release just days after this series debuts on Disney+. (In an interesting parallel, Songwriter followed Sheeran making his album Divide, and that documentary also debuted shortly before the album did. The marketing strategy must be an effective one.)
Strangely, COVID did not really factor into The Sum of It All, even though becoming a new father in the middle of a global pandemic seems like it would be noteworthy. Instead, much of the documentary details Sheeran dealing with grief following the death of his friend and fellow musician/entrepreneur, Jamal Edwards. To a lesser extent, the series also leans into Sheeran's life with his wife Cherry Seaborn and the stress of her cancer scare — although that seems to have been sorted out before filming began, so what audiences actually see is the husband and wife awkwardly talking about the uncomfortable subject. Neither seems particularly open about talking about it, and this places the audience in the position of being an unwilling intruder in intimate, private conversations.
It's ironic on some level that Sheeran has been embroiled in copyright lawsuits for the last few years, and yet very little of this documentary seems concerned with demonstrating his creative process. That isn't to say there aren't shots from inside the studio, it's just that there isn't much footage of him making Subtract in this making-of series. Maybe Sheeran was concerned he'd get accused of ripping off films as well if the content strayed too close to Get Back (or Michael Lindsay-Hogg's original documentary, Let It Be).
It's unclear what series director David Soutar was going for with The Sum of It All. Each episode is given a set theme ("Love," "Loss," "Balance" and "Life"), loosely arranged chronologically to fit Sheeran's sudden tragedy, his need to grapple with this grief, and then coming out the other side like some sort of triumphant catharsis. Unfortunately, real life rarely fits into neat narrative arcs, and grief is neither easily displayed on camera nor something you can "win." Soutar's attempts to dramatize the artist's inner feelings comes across as insincere and forced, and the overall vibe is an uncomfortable one.
A potentially polarizing point of contention I have is the use of Edwards's passing in the series. Sheeran honouring a deceased friend with his music, and by extension, this album, is good; Sheeran exploiting the death of a Black artist — especially one who was such a pillar of his community — is a bit gross. That's not to say that Sheeran isn't genuine in his intentions here, but Soutar's approach to The Sum of It All does Sheeran no favours.
Combining a two-hour-long album commercial with shots of Sheeran talking to Jamal's grieving family members and awkwardly leaving a candle by a mural feels like manufactured stakes to win sympathy and ultimately sell records — which is clearly the point of this series. Songwriter obviously worked really well as a promotional tool for Divide, but this time around, there's a person's tragic death and a series of lawsuits hanging over the content. What was Sheeran thinking? It's baffling that he would agree to do this project in these specific circumstances.
The Sum of It All is a forgettable music docuseries whose most interesting quality is inadvertently representing how anti-climactic grief really is — most people don't have Oscar-worthy emotional breakdowns, or quiet moments with a single, dignified tear indicating inner turmoil. Real grief is just a low, slow, sad burn — and that is not very cinematic.
Some people are effortlessly sincere in front of the camera, some people are not. Sheeran seems to fall into the latter camp, at least in terms of him being able to process his grief authentically with the cameras rolling.
(Disney)The Sum of It All offers audiences a four-episode series that focuses on Sheeran's life during 2022, offering a glimpse of his everyday reality and the enticing promise of a look behind the curtain. The conceit is essentially a making-of series: the documentary crew follows Sheeran around for a year as he creates the album Subtract, which is scheduled for release just days after this series debuts on Disney+. (In an interesting parallel, Songwriter followed Sheeran making his album Divide, and that documentary also debuted shortly before the album did. The marketing strategy must be an effective one.)
Strangely, COVID did not really factor into The Sum of It All, even though becoming a new father in the middle of a global pandemic seems like it would be noteworthy. Instead, much of the documentary details Sheeran dealing with grief following the death of his friend and fellow musician/entrepreneur, Jamal Edwards. To a lesser extent, the series also leans into Sheeran's life with his wife Cherry Seaborn and the stress of her cancer scare — although that seems to have been sorted out before filming began, so what audiences actually see is the husband and wife awkwardly talking about the uncomfortable subject. Neither seems particularly open about talking about it, and this places the audience in the position of being an unwilling intruder in intimate, private conversations.
It's ironic on some level that Sheeran has been embroiled in copyright lawsuits for the last few years, and yet very little of this documentary seems concerned with demonstrating his creative process. That isn't to say there aren't shots from inside the studio, it's just that there isn't much footage of him making Subtract in this making-of series. Maybe Sheeran was concerned he'd get accused of ripping off films as well if the content strayed too close to Get Back (or Michael Lindsay-Hogg's original documentary, Let It Be).
It's unclear what series director David Soutar was going for with The Sum of It All. Each episode is given a set theme ("Love," "Loss," "Balance" and "Life"), loosely arranged chronologically to fit Sheeran's sudden tragedy, his need to grapple with this grief, and then coming out the other side like some sort of triumphant catharsis. Unfortunately, real life rarely fits into neat narrative arcs, and grief is neither easily displayed on camera nor something you can "win." Soutar's attempts to dramatize the artist's inner feelings comes across as insincere and forced, and the overall vibe is an uncomfortable one.
A potentially polarizing point of contention I have is the use of Edwards's passing in the series. Sheeran honouring a deceased friend with his music, and by extension, this album, is good; Sheeran exploiting the death of a Black artist — especially one who was such a pillar of his community — is a bit gross. That's not to say that Sheeran isn't genuine in his intentions here, but Soutar's approach to The Sum of It All does Sheeran no favours.
Combining a two-hour-long album commercial with shots of Sheeran talking to Jamal's grieving family members and awkwardly leaving a candle by a mural feels like manufactured stakes to win sympathy and ultimately sell records — which is clearly the point of this series. Songwriter obviously worked really well as a promotional tool for Divide, but this time around, there's a person's tragic death and a series of lawsuits hanging over the content. What was Sheeran thinking? It's baffling that he would agree to do this project in these specific circumstances.
The Sum of It All is a forgettable music docuseries whose most interesting quality is inadvertently representing how anti-climactic grief really is — most people don't have Oscar-worthy emotional breakdowns, or quiet moments with a single, dignified tear indicating inner turmoil. Real grief is just a low, slow, sad burn — and that is not very cinematic.
Some people are effortlessly sincere in front of the camera, some people are not. Sheeran seems to fall into the latter camp, at least in terms of him being able to process his grief authentically with the cameras rolling.
