The Weeknd—real name Abel Tesfaye—has been flirting with self-destruction for years. Not just in his lyrics, but in everything from his persona to his creative choices. His music catalog reads like a late-night confession: tales of sin, shame, pleasure, and pain tangled together in a haze of despair. And now, after testing the waters with acting in Uncut Gems and crashing hard with The Idol, he’s finally set fire to the whole mythos with Hurry Up Tomorrow—a new multimedia experiment that’s part feature film, part breakup album, and full-blown identity crisis.
If that sounds dramatic, it’s because it is. Tesfaye has spent years building up this idea of The Weeknd as a tragic hedonist—a pop star on the verge of burning out, always dangling between ecstasy and oblivion. So it only makes sense that his latest project would be about tearing that image down. The problem? This cinematic therapy session masquerading as high art might mean a lot to him, but for the rest of us, it’s an indulgent, meandering mess that mistakes moodiness for meaning.
A Movie About a Man Who Thinks He’s a Myth
Let’s start with the basics. Hurry Up Tomorrow is a 100-minute feature directed by Trey Edward Shults, the man behind the visually arresting Waves and the raw indie gem Krisha. It’s shot in lush 35mm, peppered with spinning cameras and shifting aspect ratios, and tries very, very hard to be profound. But it ultimately ends up as a vanity project so inward-looking it might as well be shot in selfie mode.
The film opens with a voicemail from a woman—voiced by Riley Keough—leaving what sounds like a final goodbye. “A good person wouldn’t have done that to someone they love,” she says. That line sets the stage for the unraveling of Tesfaye’s character, a fictionalized version of himself, as he trudges through a physically grueling and emotionally exhausting tour. He’s lost in heartbreak, strung out on pills, chasing empty pleasure, and drowning in the very fame he once craved.
Cue the metaphors: he’s literally losing his voice, and the journey is about regaining it—both physically and metaphorically. Deep, right?
Except the execution doesn’t land. Despite the film being co-written by Shults, Tesfaye, and Reza Fahim, it lacks the emotional clarity or character insight to make us care. The woman who leaves him is barely a sketch, more a symbol than a person. Everyone around him is, really. They’re all props orbiting around his spiral. Even his manager Lee, played by Barry Keoghan with manic energy, feels like a mouthpiece rather than a real person. “You’re not human,” Lee screams at one point, trying to push him on stage. And in that moment, it feels like the thesis of the film—The Weeknd doesn’t see himself as human anymore, just as a vessel for his art, no matter how broken.
Enter the Muse… or the Pyromaniac
But wait, there’s a parallel story here too. Jenna Ortega shows up as a mysterious young woman who burns down her family’s rural home in the middle of nowhere and then drifts into Tesfaye’s orbit. We don’t know much about her except she had a ticket to his show, and apparently she’s called Anima—a Jungian reference to the feminine aspect of a man’s psyche. Yes, it’s as subtle as a sledgehammer.
Their paths finally cross about an hour into the film, which is a long wait for a story that only truly sparks once they’re on screen together. Ortega brings an intensity and emotional charge the film sorely needs. In the final act, her character makes a sudden pivot into obsessed fan territory—think Misery meets American Psycho with a touch of The Shining. She tells Tesfaye what his songs mean to her, why they were “meant” to meet, and why they should be together forever. It’s equal parts creepy and captivating, and Ortega sells it.
But even this jolt of narrative life comes too late. By the time Anima pulls the film toward psychological horror, the audience is already emotionally checked out. It’s a frustrating pattern in Hurry Up Tomorrow: flashes of brilliance buried under layers of ego and excess.
A Vanity Project That Mistakes Narcissism for Depth
Let’s be real—this movie is all about The Weeknd. Even when it isn’t. The camera rarely leaves his face. Whether he’s crying, performing, whispering into a mic, or having anonymous sex, we are always inches away from his sweat-covered skin. And the film seems to think this is enough to carry a story.
The concert scenes, particularly one centered around his track “Wake Me Up,” are chaotic and claustrophobic. There’s little attempt to show the crowd, to ground us in the scale of a live performance. It’s all filtered through his gaze, reinforcing the solipsism of a man who can’t see beyond his own pain.
You could argue that’s the point. That it’s a critique of fame, of isolation, of being so big you start to disappear inside yourself. But if that’s what Tesfaye and Shults were going for, they forgot one thing—empathy. There’s no invitation for the audience to connect. No space to feel what he’s feeling. It’s just a glossy slideshow of breakdowns and metaphors, style over substance, aesthetics over emotion.
Better Men Have Done This Before
Self-destructive celebrity stories aren’t new. In fact, they’re practically a genre of their own. Think Vox Lux, where Brady Corbet created a surreal, dark meditation on fame that was both chilling and poignant. Or the upcoming Better Man, which reportedly sees Robbie Williams tackling his own chaos with self-awareness and humor. Hurry Up Tomorrow wants to be in that league, but it’s far too self-serious and far too messy to stick the landing.
It’s telling that the film tries so hard to come off as “artsy.” The 35mm cinematography, the shifting aspect ratios, the long tracking shots, the spinning car scenes—all textbook A24-style visual flair. But none of it feels earned. It’s like a greatest hits of arthouse tricks, used not to illuminate a story but to distract from the lack of one.
The Death of The Weeknd, or Just Another Album Rollout?
Tesfaye has been signaling the end of his Weeknd persona for a while now. This film, and the accompanying album released earlier this year, were supposed to be a grand finale—a way to kill off the tortured pop star and rise from the ashes as someone new. But here’s the thing: rebirth only works if the destruction means something. If it’s honest. Hurry Up Tomorrow feels less like an ending and more like a dramatic costume change.
And maybe that’s fine. After all, pop stars are always reinventing themselves. Bowie did it. Madonna made it an art form. Even Taylor Swift has had more eras than Marvel. But what separates those transformations from this one is the intention behind them. Hurry Up Tomorrow doesn’t feel like growth. It feels like someone throwing a tantrum because the world no longer worships them the way it used to.
Final Thoughts: A Long Goodbye That Feels Like an Ego Trip
There are moments in Hurry Up Tomorrow that suggest a better movie is hiding somewhere in the rubble. Jenna Ortega’s performance is bold and captivating. Barry Keoghan adds a bit of chaos. And even Tesfaye, when not trying so hard, manages to convey real vulnerability in a handful of quiet scenes.
But none of it is enough to salvage the whole. What could have been a powerful meditation on fame, heartbreak, and artistic identity instead plays like a bloated concept video stretched far beyond its limits. It’s 100 minutes of watching a man scream into a mirror and hoping we’ll find it deep.
If you’re a die-hard Weeknd fan, you might find meaning in the madness. But for everyone else, Hurry Up Tomorrow is a cautionary tale about what happens when a pop star believes his own mythology a little too much.
Because at the end of the day, the only thing worse than watching someone fall apart on screen… is realizing they think it’s a masterpiece.
