The music video for We Can’t Be Friends (Wait for Your Love) is directed by Christian Breslauer. It was filmed on the south campus grounds of the California Polytechnic State University located in the city of Pomona, California. It premiered via Grande’s Vevo channel on YouTube at 10:00 Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) on March 8, 2024, ten hours after the song’s and album’s release. The concept of the visual is heavily inspired by the plot of the film Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); it was described by Grande as “[Eternal Sunshine] in a video”.
Grande portrays a character named Peaches while Evan Peters plays as her ex-boyfriend in the video. Several scenes from Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind are referenced in the video, while a reference to a Sixteen Candles (1984) scene is made as well. Billboard called the video “futuristic”.
Synopsis
The video opens with Grande portraying a character named Peaches, seen sitting in a waiting room holding a consent form reading: “You have given extensive thought behind your decision and give ‘Brighter Days Inc.’ the exclusive permission to remove this person completely from your memory”.
Peaches reluctantly ticks a box labeled ‘yes’ and signs the form. A doctor enters the waiting room to call Peaches for her treatment. She gives the doctor her consent form and carries a box of belongings with her to the room. Peaches is then shown seated and about to begin her procedure.
The doctor takes a teddy bear from the box and uses a device to remove it from existence and from Peaches’ memory. How the teddy bear came to be and its link to Peaches’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend is then shown as the wall of the operation room divides into two and shows them both entering an arcade. They approach a claw game and are seen winning the teddy bear. Suddenly, the arcade goes dark and her ex-boyfriend disappears from the memory.
Shifting to a bedroom, Peaches is seen sitting on a bed looking towards her ex-boyfriend whilst he is frowning, turned away from her. The scene shifts once again, this time to a different memory where she is seen opening a door leading her to see them both lying in the snow creating snow angels. The scene ends again with her ex-boyfriend disappearing from the memory. Peaches is seen next holding hands with her ex-boyfriend in a bed under a blanket. The bed is divided into two and the pair are separated, leaving her alone under the blanket.
Back in the operation room, in the belongings, a framed picture of the couple celebrating Peaches’s birthday with a cake can be seen. They lean towards each other and her ex-boyfriend disappears to Peaches’s surprise. Now alone, she blows out the candles on the cake before the scene returns to the operation room. Peaches gains consciousness and becomes emotional.
Another memory is shown where she and her ex-boyfriend are together on a sofa. He gives her a necklace but the memory alters with the necklace morphing into a dog collar and her ex-boyfriend being replaced with a dog. The living room also alters, with picture frames and other decor transforming to omit every memory of the couple.
Peaches and her dog watch the TV in the room and a final montage of each of the memories is played. The scene cuts back to the operation room where Peaches is seen shaking hands and hugging the doctors involved with her treatment. Her box of belongings is then shown to be incinerated. After leaving the operation room, Peaches walks with a guy past her ex-boyfriend, who is seen also walking with a girl, unaware of each other’s existence.
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