Spike Jonze and FKA twigs Made a Jaw-Dropping Short Film for Apple’s HomePod

Spike Jonze has long been deeply embedded in the dance world.

He explored movement in everything from the Fatboy Slim videos he helped to choreograph in the late ’90s, to Levi’s “Crazy Legs” commercial a few years later, all the way up to the famous 2016 Kenzo film he directed starring Margaret Qualley—which was a collaboration with Kenzo creative directors Humberto Leon and Carol Lim, who also happen to run the design label Opening Ceremony, for whom Jonze recently directed another stunning dance project, “Changers,” starring Lakeith Stanfield and Mia Wasikowska.

Now, it’s Apple’s turn to call on Jonze’s genius for dance pieces.

The 48-year-old Oscar winner has directed a new four-minute short film for Apple’s HomePod speaker featuring yet another marquee collaborator—the English musician and dancer FKA twigs. The result is a stunning piece that’s charming, surreal, emotional, playful, theatrical and utterly compelling—one of the most remarkable ads of the year so far.

The film, titled “Welcome Home,” which rolled out at midnight ET tonight, is set to a new Anderson .Paak track called “‘Til It’s Over.” It was choreographed by Ryan Heffington, who also worked on Jonze’s “Changers” piece.

Check it out here:

The piece beautifully conveys an emotional journey through movement (something with which Jonze clearly remains fascinated) and offers a wonderful visual metaphor for transforming one’s home—one’s physical abode, yes, but one’s headspace, really—though music. Tying things together, of course, is the product pitch—that this whole experience is delivered by the powerful HomePod speaker, curated by Apple Music, with an assist from Siri.

And speaking of which, it’s just fun to see Spike Jonze direct an ad featuring Siri, given he won his Oscar for writing a film about an intelligent operating system, a fictional OS that Siri was nonetheless a little jealous of once upon a time.

The four-minute film will run online, with a 60-second cut set to air on primetime network television.

Apple declined to comment further to Adweek about the piece, but we are expecting a bit more info later in the week on how, exactly, Jonze put this mini masterpiece together.

Tim Nudd

@nudd

Tim Nudd is a former creative editor of Adweek.