So much of the Swift conversation for more than a decade now, from your earliest reviews, Jon, to the 2011 profile in The New Yorker and so on, has been about how in control she was — of her music, her narrative, her business empire. “Miss Americana” does present her in relation to the men in her life as the idea factory and the chief executive.

The fact that her team, outside of her mother and publicist, remain just a smattering of mostly middle-age faces — even her father is hardly shown and barely identified, while her boyfriend, the actor Joe Alwyn, is obscured behind the camera or a black cap — leaves the onus for her decisions pretty firmly on her. But the antagonist of the film is a formidable opponent, even for someone as world-beating as Swift: the patriarchy.

CARAMANICA There are a few reasons for a pop star to make a vanity documentary about themselves (and trust, this is one of many that the streaming content wars will birth in the coming years) — to advertise oneself, to correct a public (mis)perception, to squeeze cash out of all available corporate partners while the getting is still good. (Swift herself describes this time period, in a different context, as “while society is still tolerating me being successful.”)

“Miss Americana” isn’t exactly any of those things, which makes it both more interesting and more confusing. Notionally, it follows Swift over the past two years as she comes into her own politically, and begins to pivot away from the vindictiveness of the “Reputation” era back toward the more familiar modes she deployed on “Lover.” But it also flashes back to earlier traumas — it’s not sure whether it’s trying to be an origin story, or a ride-along. Or maybe it’s an origin story of Taylor 2.0.

COSCARELLI 3.0? 4.1!?

CARAMANICA I do like that Wilson also has a light sense of humor about her subject. From an adult’s perspective, an overly precocious child is always funny, and there are plenty of early Swift videos sprinkled throughout. It’s Wilson who lets the camera linger on those inadequate men. I wouldn’t go so far as to say she’s unsympathetic to Swift, but I like that she’s clearly viewing from the outside.

COSCARELLI The question of who had final cut on the film was rattling around in my brain the whole time I was watching, and after. I’ve ultimately decided “Miss Americana” is more than pop propaganda, but as with many things Swift, there’s a lot of surface-level symbolism you can read into here, such as the decision to go with Wilson, whose first film, “After Tiller,” is about the endangered doctors who perform third-trimester abortions. That’s a hell of a choice for a movie that turns on a feminist awakening of sorts.