Hurry Up Tomorrow

The title Hurry Up Tomorrow is incredibly appropriate-because the entire time I was watching it, I just wanted it to hurry up and end. Calling this a "film" is generous; surviving it felt more like a cinematic endurance test.

The plot is laughably shallow, padded with so much pointless fluff that the pacing is downright painful. Abel Tesfaye, a.k.a. The Weeknd, essentially plays himself-and not well. His acting is so stiff, it's almost impressive. Sharing scenes with Jenna Ortega only makes it worse; she effortlessly outshines him at every turn, making his performance look like a high school drama rehearsal.

To make matters worse, the whole movie is drenched in ego. There's a scene-I'm not making this up-where Jenna's character actually analyzes the deep themes of his music. It tries to present itself as some kind of profound artistic statement, but really, it's just a 100-minute commercial for his new album.

Abel, please-stick to your day job.

A soft 5/10. Abel Tesfaye's Hurry Up Tomorrow flirts with greatness but gets caught in its own spin, literally. The overused spinning camera becomes more distracting than dynamic and pulls from an otherwise intimate movie that gradually finds its own rhythm. The small cast works well and the slow-burn structure kept me guessing what kind of movie it really was until it clicked into place. It tries a little too hard to feel surreal and there's definitely some ego stroking going on by The Weekend. A few memorable moments.. It's Trey Edward Shults and feels like it. It's ambitious, uneven, and intriguing.

This movie contains numerous spinning camera angles and a soundtrack that tries to imitate the Bladerunner 2049 at times. From the opening scene where the song went on a lot longer than it really should have, I already had a sinking feeling about the movie. Thirty minutes later and almost nothing about the plot has been revealed. Heck, Jenny Ortega hasn't even spoken a single word. What a complete waste of time. This movie tries way too hard to be surreal and it completely failed to do anything to make me care about any of the characters. What is this movie trying to achieve? I honestly have no idea.

Prefacing this by saying i am a huge fan of the weeknd, and was willing to give this film a chance after the idol. That being said, this film just felt wholly unneeded? It might be better than the idol, sure, but that's not saying much. But it didn't really DO anything, narrative wise, development wise, etc. The best way i'd describe this would be it feels like a long music video, with nice shots, and (maybe too many) songs, but lacks any real substance to it... i will say i appreciated some parts, especially when there was a dive into abel's introspection in the dream sequences. But the issue was, it really just didn't dive deep enough to feel meaningful, and ultimately fell flat.

Abel's acting is an improvement from his last stunt but it's not saying much. Coming from a place of love for his music and craft, i think he would be much more successful behind the scenes rather than in front of it (at least for now). Overall? I would watch it if you want to get a few laughs in from unintentionally funny scenes, and if you are a big fan of the weeknd, it's worth a shot.

I love The Weeknd's music but this has to be one of the most pretentious movies I have seen in quite sometime.

Based as a companion piece of the album "Hurry Up Tomorrow", the Weeknd creates a musical piece based on his musical works to tell a tale of connection, self, and the breakdown of fame. I understand what the movie is going for and the artistic choices but this movie really feels like The Weeknd is trying to show off as if his personal and works are amazing and masterpieces, as if he is desperately trying to become the newest grand in musical cinema. This all falls short because of the poor writing, bad execution and really awful atmosphere and approach.

The writing feels meaningless, as if it's like an art-house movie without direction and purpose. There are some decent visual presentation and camerawork. However, the poor editing choices and messy technics between with the music and editing makes it unbearable and sloppy. The performances are not good. The Weeknd's performance was laughably bad especially any moment with dialogue. Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan are doing their best but unfortunately they aren't able to save the film.

Alongside with poor direction, bad dialogue, and pretentious themes, it's a really bad musical piece that tries really hard to be artistic when it's just full of itself. Director Trey Edward Shults is a filmmaker I love but it's pretty clear his talents and direction is out of his control since it feels like The Weeknd took it over with his vision, and his vision is bad.

It's pretty clear that The Weeknd is a talented singer but movie-wise, he should really stay away from it. Not necessarily as awful as "The Idol" but that's not saying much.

Bad.