"Hurry Up Tomorrow" - Unbridled Narcissism Has a New Cinematic Spokesperson

For the past decade, Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye has been an unavoidable presence in the sphere of pop culture. From one number one hit after another to headlining the Super Bowl halftime show, The Weeknd has fully cemented his place as one of the premier pop stars of the 21st century. In addition to music, he has also been pursuing a career in acting, writing, and film producing for the past few years, notably with his role in Sam Levinson's The Idol back in 2023. Unfortunately, that series was met with near universal pan, but this year he's back with another project, the companion film to his newest album, Hurry Up Tomorrow. But let's just say that judging by audience reactions, the Weeknd is still far from redemption.

The Weeknd is an artist that I have always kept at a bit of arms length. I enjoy the vast majority of his catalogue, but nearly every single song of his is just him whining about how terrible of a person he is, and how far away from him you should stay as a potential partner. Obviously I don’t know Abel personally, so for all I know he’s God’s gift to this green Earth. Although with his first screenwriting credit, alongside indie darling, writer/director Trey Edward Shults, Hurry Up Tomorrow serves up perhaps the most damning piece of evidence yet that what Abel needs far more than a microphone and screenwriting software is the best therapist that money can buy. 

For the first hour of the runtime, I was more willing than anticipated to give Abel and Shults and company a decent amount of grace with the level of narcissism on display. There is nothing inherently wrong with an artist attempting to make a piece of work that is about themselves. But the source of said toxic hubris at first seems to stem from innocent lack of skill in the writer’s room on Abel’s part. Trey Edward Shults brings more than his fair share of flare to the film, with some beautifully staged shots, and his signature aspect ratio changes. The lighting is undeniably spectacular, and there are a couple of single frames in particular that I found truly breathtaking. By far the shining light of the film is Jenna Ortega, whose performance is far better than the film deserves…mostly because she is the one with the least amount of the atrocious dialogue to say. 

I was surprised to see how quickly clips from this film were being uploaded to Twitter from people recording cam rips at pre-screenings making fun of a good amount of the line delivery. It felt like we had reverted back to a sort of pre-pandemic form of hate watching that I want to return to less than anything. Which is why it’s sad to report that somehow these now viral moments are even worse in the context of the rest of the film than they are on their own.

 I seemed to be the only person in the relatively full cinema that didn’t come to specifically see a now viral moment of Abel cursing out Jenna Ortega in a hotel room. It’s hard to blame the actors for the performances, because the script isn’t doing them any favors whatsoever. Every single line of dialogue feels as if it’s been plucked from a middle schooler’s 2013 Tumblr page. There is no subtlety whatsoever, and every conversation explicitly states its thematic purpose even more haphazardly with each passing line of dialogue. Some moments were so genuinely uncomfortable that they had curled up into a ball in my seat.

In all fairness to Abel, he gives far from the worst performance in the film. Barry Keoghan plays his tour manager, and every moment from him makes you question whether it was actually him in his other performances, or some form of a less evil identical twin. As previously mentioned, Jenna Ortega gives the best performance by a wide margin, but her character still remains totally uninteresting. We often see her doing things that set up a potentially very interesting story, but it becomes abundantly clear very quickly that we will be getting no answers; and the thematic purpose for this is about as intellectually stimulating as an infantile sensory video.

The pacing of the film is some of the weakest I’ve seen in the past 10 years, and if you were to remove every single sequence that is entirely dedicated to one of Abel’s concerts or private performances of full songs, you would likely be left with a 30 minute short. Every single moment feels personally manufactured to make Abel look like a tortured, flawed, but ultimately still desirable genius. His comments to Deadline about how he seemingly wanted to stay in his lane as a performer feel the furthest thing from truthful after sitting through the film, and if anything, just add more fuel to the borderline sociopathic fire.  

I would like to end on a hopeful note and say that despite how much of a tragic misfire this was, there is undeniably potential for Abel to have a decent amount of skill in the screenwriting chair, and in front of the camera. Even though he was barely in the film, his performance in Uncut Gems was surprisingly great, and if he just gets over himself a little bit, I could see him writing a screenplay about his demons that turns out really profound. The moment he gives up trying to copy Euphoria for whatever reason, and has a few therapeutic breakthroughs… mark my words he might actually grace us with something positively memorable.