The video shows Swift battling to get out of a forest, interpreting the title literally.[38] Swift is seen struggling to escape a magical forest while being chased by a pack of wolves as animate roots constantly follow her. She then finds herself in different natural settings like snowy mountains, an ocean, a barren landscape, a muddy location, and a burning forest. At the end of the video, the woods disappear as she finds a beach, where another version of her is standing by the shore as she reaches for her.[63] The video ends with the caption “She lost him, but she found herself, and somehow that was everything,” which is a hidden message written in the booklet of 1989.[38]

Kahn said that Swift “suffered for the art”; she did not employ a double stunt and did all the action, such as crawling through the mud or running through the snow, by herself.[64] Media publications remarked on the video’s visual effects and cinematic storytelling.[65][66] Amanda Bell from MTV News compared the video’s cinematic quality to the Harry Potter series, and commented that the video’s message “serves as a clear metaphor for her very public relationship history and how she transformed each conflict into her own personal victories, one in particular”.[67]