In “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” a young woman runs away from home to watch a live performance by her favourite musician. Writer-director Trey Edward Shults attempts to gussy up this timeworn cliche聽with a canister of gasoline, poured over every inch of a cluttered household and finally ignited by a weeping Jenna Ortega. Her chosen idol is Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. the Weeknd, who plays himself in this laughably navel-gazing psychodrama.
The film聽鈥 which the Toronto-born singer also co-wrote聽鈥 was conceived before the creation of his official tie-in album, an edgy confection of the same name which dropped earlier this year. Themes of cultish worship, personal reflection and artistic rebirth permeate “Hurry Up Tomorrow” in both of its formats聽鈥 in the movie, they betray a narcissism so transparent and malignant that it loses most of its rancour; unlike the film鈥檚 boppy musical counterpart, “Hurry Up Tomorrow”鈥檚 greatest sin is being boring.
鈥淎bel鈥 has just been dumped by his girlfriend (Riley Keough, featured only as a voice on the phone), who tells him that he deserves to die alone. While a saucer-eyed Ortega treks toward the show in her stolen pickup聽鈥 Chekhov鈥檚 gasoline canister still on-hand聽鈥 the Weeknd slips in and out of spirals and tantrums, barely kept afloat by his manager-slash-buddy Lee (Barry Keoghan). After watching Abel howl a slew of blubbering obscenities at his ex over the phone, the harried Irish party animal hypes up his self-doubting cash cow, plying the singer with bumps of coke in between affirmations of 鈥淚 love you, bro.鈥 Abel goes out onstage and almost immediately chokes聽鈥 an echo of the Weeknd鈥檚 own experience losing his voice mid-concert back in 2022 (alluded to on the album鈥檚 third track, 鈥淚 Can鈥檛 F—king Sing鈥).
Reeling from failures both personal and professional, Abel runs headfirst into Ortega鈥檚 wayward fangirl in the hallways backstage. She whisks him away from his troubles for a nighttime odyssey in Coney Island聽鈥 complete with air hockey and electric scooter rides, serenaded by the album鈥檚 gooier tracks聽鈥 that climaxes with Abel playing her a 鈥渨ork in progress,鈥 which reduces her to tears. Night becomes morning, and the next day鈥檚 faded lustre curdles into something altogether strange, forever altering the course of this tortured singer鈥檚 life and career.
To put it plainly, Tesfaye and Shults are a match made in hell. The Weeknd鈥檚 glitzy discography聽鈥 emceed by that histrionic, and vaguely sinister, trademark falsetto聽鈥 seems bespoke to a filmmaker who trades in decorative misery. His first three features are grim, overdetermined cavalcades of unpleasantness: “Krisha” (2015) wears down the emotional faculties of a recovering addict over the course of a nightmarish Thanksgiving dinner; “It Comes at Night” (2017) watches a tight-knit m茅nage psychically splinter while a strange disease ravages the postapocalyptic world outside; and “Waves” (2019) drives a young Black athlete to the breaking point before lingering on the familial damage felt in his wake.
Shults鈥檚 films arrived just as A24鈥檚 annexation of the indie landscape reached its peak; the studio鈥檚 burgeoning house style encouraged patronizing flourish and ostentatious technique, which this savvy聽鈥 yet exceedingly juvenile聽鈥 Texan delivered in spades. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” (released by Lionsgate), on the other hand, seems almost scientifically engineered to fail on every cinematic level. Aside from its lumbering, arrhythmic flow, the film鈥檚 utter lack of stylistic conviction is reflected in the camera鈥檚 listless, arbitrary movements. Shults鈥檚 formal choices are loud, obtrusive and inept, largely defaulting to woozy, juddering shallow focus and repetitive rotating pans.
Tesfaye also wound up a creative force for an A24 production, only this one sent him, justifiably, to the proverbial doghouse; “The Idol” (made in partnership with HBO) sparked controversies that have long outlasted the series鈥 five-episode run back in 2023. Tesfaye聽鈥 both star and executive producer聽鈥 reportedly overhauled the vision of director Amy Seimetz, enlisting the show鈥檚 writer Sam Levinson (“Euphoria”) for extensive reshoots. The resulting project is hideously chauvinistic in both content and context, bleakly reflecting the fetishistic attitudes that shaped it. “The Idol” also features an impossibly bad performance by Tesfaye, whose constipated expressions of charisma and mania were correctly ridiculed online.
He does not fare any better in “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” nor do either of the film鈥檚 A-listers; Keoghan hammers the one note he鈥檚 been given by the screenplay, and Ortega brings a baffling intensity to a character that never strays far from shallow archetype. Tesfaye and Shults name her 鈥淎nima,鈥 a term from Jungian psychology that refers to the feminine part of the male psyche聽鈥 a handy clue as to why this unstable woman spends the final, “Misery”-inflected stretch of this film obnoxiously analyzing the Weeknd鈥檚 greatest hits.
The film鈥檚 circuitous narrative takes two agonizing hours to unveil its true colours, with desperate, borrowed abstractions striving to ennoble the flailing creative endeavours of the artist whose subconscious we鈥檙e trapped in. “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is remarkable in its ceaseless and shameless capacity for failure, constantly finding new and innovative ways to fall flat on its face.
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