- Hurry Up Tomorrow labelled “Plot free”, “egomaniacal” and “dull”
- Audiences have rated it far higher than critics, however
- Film had initially debuted at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes
Abel ‘The Weeknd’ Tesfaye may be prolific when it comes to smashing streaming records with his music, but when it comes to his on-screen career, his projects are being less than well received. To put it mildly.
And his new film, Hurry Up Tomorrow, in which Tesfaye plays a fictionalised version of himself, doesn’t appear to be the project which will catapult The Weeknd towards any award nominations or ‘end of year’ lists any time soon.
Critics Heap Misery Upon Hurry Up Tomorrow
Starring alongside Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan, Tesfaye plays a version of The Weeknd on the verge of a mental breakdown. Encountering troubled young fan Anima (Ortega), everything seems to be briefly looking up for the pair. Until it very quickly looks all the way down and goes all Stephen King’s Misery on us.
And, speaking of misery, there is plenty to be found among the critics reviews. They have left Hurry Up Tomorrow on just 16% on Rotten Tomatoes.
Jordan Hoffman, from Entertainment Weekly, was particularly scathing. He wrote, “The nearly plot-free movie is self-indulgent, overly serious, and, worst of all, just plain dull.”
Maria Sherman, from the Associated Press, meanwhile, added to the scathing takes. Her review went off, saying, “An exciting vanity project with surrealist imagination but stiff writing, no stakes, limited emotional weight and an unclear narrative.”
Next Best Picture’s Giovanni Lago did not hold back either. “Hurry Up Tomorrow is an experimental ego-death trip that is truly a thinly veiled vanity project so inept that it comes off as nothing more than a wash for everyone involved.”
The Weeknd Character Is Dead, But The Fans May Keep Abel Tesfaye’s Cinematic Career Going
Bloody Disgusting’s Meagan Navarro dismissed the film as “an exhausting show of empty vanity”. Alexander Mooney in the Toronto Star tore into the end of The Weeknd. “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.”
Somehow, though, among all these ferociously dissenting voices, the cinematic efforts of The Weeknd (who co-wrote the script with Trey Andrew Shults and Reza Fahim) are being appreciated by the fans, who have propped it up with a score of 75% on the popcornmeter. So there is still hope for Tesfaye, as he will apparently now be known, with The Weeknd seemingly being retired following the film and accompanying album of the same name.
