Hurry Up Tomorrow: The Weeknd is Ready For His Closeup in Arty, Misery-esque Thriller
By Jim Slotek
Rating: B-
It’s ironic that the Toronto-raised music superstar Abel Tesfaye – a.k.a. the Weeknd – was so once ambivalent about fame that he resisted allowing people to see his face.
In the trippy, superficially autobiographical art-film/thriller Hurry Up Tomorrow, his face is all we see for a good while. And that’s not even counting the music video/ad for the recent album of the same name that runs before the feature so seamlessly that people at my screening thought it was the beginning of the movie (and laughed when they found out it wasn’t).
Jenna Ortega has the jump on the Weeknd in Hurry Up Tomorrow
The actual beginning of the movie features Tesfaye’s face even more close-up, as he replays a break-up voicemail in his head, takes a huff from an inhaler, washes it down with alcohol, and blubbers/rages over the break-up while his handlers buff him, put a cape on him like a prize-fighter heading into the arena and then send him into battle with his fears in front of the faithful.
I will admit, at this point, I was not expecting much, other than an extended ego wank, a messed-up star finding redemption.
But thankfully director-co-writer Trey Edward Shults (the horror thriller It Comes at Night) had darker and more interesting plans. As the Weeknd (in the movie Tesfaye plays a character with the same names, on and offstage) absorbs the audience’s love, we get glimpses of a young woman (Jenna Ortega) ugly-crying and pouring gasoline all over someone’s home.
No, she’s not the woman in Tesfaye’s voicemail. But she does pop a Weeknd album in her ancient SUV as she leaves the burning home behind.
What follows is equal parts fantastical and predictable – with a heavy nod to Stephen King’s Misery. The clearly unbalanced fan, Anima, shows up at the Weeknd’s next concert, just as he loses his voice and races off the stage. She eludes security backstage and they literally run into each other. For no apparent reason, he calls off security, and they set off together to have fun at a boardwalk carnival while wearing masks.
Like almost everything in the movie, the masked good time is a clear metaphor for fame and the loss of self.
After spending the night in a different hotel than where his team is staying, Tesfaye says his rote goodbye-I’ve-got-tour-to-join, which enrages his apparently teenaged one-night-stand. And, well…
This is where Shults gets to indulge his higher pretensions – particularly in the segments where an unconscious Tesfaye experiences hallucinations of an empty city, and an elevator descends to a hellish subterranean landscape where there is at least one very good jump-scare.
Once awake, Anima isn’t your usual captor. She dances wildly to his songs (her favourite song is, ahem, “Gasoline,” though she’s as big a fan of “Blinding Lights” as much as the next person) and she tries to get him to admit to the trauma that inspired them. I couldn’t help but think Anima is a surrogate for the real-life Tesfaye’s fear of interviews.
Eventually, Shults seems to run out of things to do with the concept, and the last act seems rushed and the denouement ambiguous. Where do the fantasies and visions stop and reality begins? Also, there are many mundane but pertinent questions that should pop into mind as the plot unravels.
Tesfaye has dipped his toe into acting before, but this is a deep dive. It turns out he has an expressive face, particularly when what he’s supposed to be expressing is shock and fear (he’s so good at it, that got laughs too).
But the heavy lifting is all Ortega (hey, don’t mess with Wednesday Addams), and Barry Keoghan (Saltburn) solidly plays The Weeknd’s best friend/manager, who keeps the superstar on course with pep talks and bumps of cocaine.
Tesfaye’s admitted musical influences include Prince, who made the definitive movie/album companion piece with Purple Rain. This is not that.
The songs in Hurry Up Tomorrow are not particularly showcased (with the title song being a key exception, embedded in the plot). And this is not a rousing movie that people are going to come away from energized.
Still, it’s an interesting approach to an extended ad for an album.
Hurry Up Tomorrow. Directed and co-written by Trey Edward Shults. Written by Shults, Abel Tesfaye and Reza Fahim. Starring Abel Tesfaye, Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan. In theatres May 16.