BLUR: TO THE END - Mark Reviews Movies

Blur: To the End, Greenwich Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | June 26, 2025

Like a lot of bands, Blur had its ups and downs, and its members had their times together and apart. Blur: To the End is a documentary about the band's most recent reunion in 2023, when lead singer Damon Albarn, finding himself suddenly and unexpectedly living alone in a house in the English countryside, decided a new album of songs he had written was in order.

Albarn, we quickly learn in director Toby L.'s film, is the man who, for better and worse, keeps the band on track. It's for the better by the end of the recording of the album and a European tour because everyone in the band gets the chance to live out a dream they didn't achieve at the height of the group's popularity in the 1990s. There's something quite satisfying watching that unfold for them.

It's for the worse, though, because Albarn is quite the taskmaster, easily distracted when he isn't working, and, even though he's more generous toward himself, a bit of a perfectionist when it comes to those working around him. Blur first separated in the early 2000s, reunited several years later, and haven't even talked much to each other in the eight years or so since their second break-up. As the man said, absence makes the heart grow fonder, which might be why they're all so happy to see each other upon first meeting up on Albarn's home, but it doesn't take long before we catch glimpses of why the band has already split twice before this point.

This isn't a criticism of any of the participants of this documentary, but it is commendation of L.'s fly-on-the-wall approach. To be sure, the director sits down for interviews with members of Blur as they go through the processes of writing, recording, rehearsing, touring, and performing. In those interviews, everyone's a little guarded about revealing too much. Someone drops something, for example, about something from the past, and when the filmmakers ask for a response from Albarn, he's clearly irritated and says as much. He doesn't want to talk about that kind of stuff, wonders why any of his bandmates would bring it up in the first place, and points out that to talk about that thing would necessitate raising some other bit of tabloid-like gossip.

To stay silent about the rumors and other such matters is their prerogative, of course, because no one here owes us anything except the music and to at least be honest about that part. Albarn is very much the private type. When he explains why he's alone in his country home, he doesn't actually explain a single thing. He just points out that he was in a relationship, that the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and that, suddenly, he was no longer in a relationship. One could interpret that to mean his partner died, but as far as any minimal research of the very little Albarn has revealed outside of this documentary, such is not the case. That says a lot about the kind of guy he is.

It's easy to focus on Albarn here, because he really is the main focus for a while. The rest of the band—made up of guitarist Graham Coxon, bassist Alex James, and drummer Dave Rowntree—talk about their frontman a lot—how talented he is as a songwriter and also how obsessed he can be about writing songs. When they get to a studio for rehearsals, someone mentions that part of the band's job now is to make sure that Albarn stays interested in what they have to do. If he's not, he'll just start writing songs in the corner while everyone wonders if this reunion will actually last long enough to make it to Wembley Stadium.

That's the goal here, by the way. For as famous as Blur became in the '90s and as many venues in which they performed, that iconic one had eluded them through 2023, when the documentary was filmed. There's some legitimate tension to whether or not that might happen, too. All of them are in their 50s at this point, which is by no means a deal-breaker—except that most of them haven't done the whole recording and touring thing for a long time. There are worries that alcohol, which is directly noted to be one of the main reasons for the band's initial separation, might get in the way, and shortly before the Wembley date, Rowntree injures his knee. He jokes that he's just happy it was in the second-least rock-and-roll way possible that the doctor had heard that week.

The most significant obstacle, though, may be Albarn, who does start to lose interest and his temper at rehearsals. There's nothing to be done about that, because the singer is who he is and his bandmates know all of that about him, too. Still, these are men with lives that haven't necessarily revolved around music for some time now (Rowntree became an attorney after the band's first break), and as friendly as those other bandmates are with each other and pleasant as they are more generally, everyone has a breaking point.

Something does click eventually in Blur: To the End, as some of the band members revisit old haunts, the group starts touring again, and the rehearsals pay off with some energetic performances in smaller venues. Nothing, really, has changed about these guys since their reunion, except that they're actually playing music for real again and together. It's an endearing experience to witness.

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