Rihanna plays Kate in UK-centric video

Rihanna’s new video for “We Found Love” takes the singer on gritty trip through ‘90s Britain, complete with homage to one of Corinne Day’s most famous portraits of Kate Moss.

In the video’s main scene, Rihanna wears striped pants and an oversized denim jacket as she leans against a bedroom wall festooned with blinking fairy lights. The visual recalls Corinne Day’s 1993 shot of Kate Moss in a pink vest and black knickers against a similarly garlanded background.

In another nod to British youth culture, the video features a monologue narrated by Agyness Deyn. ‘It’s like you’re screaming, and no one can hear,’ Deyn says at the beginning of the video. ‘You almost feel ashamed, that someone could be that important. That without them, you feel like nothing. No one will ever understand how much it hurts. You feel hopeless. Like nothing can save you. And when it’s over, and it’s gone, you almost wish that you could have all that bad stuff back... so that you could have the good.’

What else? The video is about love, from its inception to collapse. In four and a half minutes, Rihanna and screen boyfriend Dudley O’Shaunessy hurtle through the early stages of a relationship (flirting in a minimart, flirting in a skate park), through drug use, a screaming fight in a car and a bathtub breakdown. At one point, Rihanna vomits ribbons.

But here, the darker parts of reckless coupledom—dilated pupils, pills, emotional codependence—take a danceable pop background likely to make you want to watch again. Have a look...

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