Abel Tesfaye is an open book to everyone but himself.
The international pop star, better known as The Weeknd, writes his feelings in every song he makes
“I can’t see clearly when you’re gone,” he sings in “Blinding Lights.”
“I want you ‘cause we’re both insane,” we hear in “Gasoline.”
“I just can’t say I don’t love you,” Tesfaye writes in “Die For You.”
It’s so obvious he’s hurting. Abel can’t let go of his ex-girlfriend. He knows their breakup was ultimately his fault. But grappling with that reality leaves him a sobbing mess.
Anima knows the feeling. She’s got her own scars and sins; she’s always alone and on the run. So when she runs into Abel backstage after a canceled performance, they feel an instant connection. They spend the night enjoying each other’s small comforts against the pain.
But tomorrow comes, and Abel knows he needs to get back on the road. Anima feels betrayed. Weren’t they overcoming their trauma together? She knows they haven’t finished healing. If Abel leaves now, he’ll just fall right back into his drug-filled days of sorrow.
To Anima, the answer, then, is simple: She won’t let him leave.
No matter what.
[Note: Spoilers are contained in the following sections.]
Anima’s approach to her and Abel’s issues is intense. But it’s rooted in an understanding that they need to confront their deep brokenness with a spiritual response, which I’ll describe in the next section.
Hurry Up Tomorrow reminds viewers that sin must be confronted. That confrontation is often hard, and it can be messy, but we see how repentance is necessary for growth.
Both Anima and Abel’s manager, Lee, are likely symbolic representations of Abel’s mental state. Psychiatrist Carl Jung described “anima” as the “unconscious feminine side” within a man, a side that strives to bridge a man’s conscious ego to his unconscious side. In this film, Anima attempts to get Abel to recognize his repressed feelings of self-destruction within his song lyrics so that he can bring them to light, repent and move forward.
Meanwhile, Lee represents the other side of Abel’s identity: his conscious presentation of himself. Lee spends the film buttering Abel up, calling him a “supernatural being” and feeding his god complex. And by hoping to minimize any grief Abel goes through, Lee only causes Abel to bottle up more pain that Anima then must dredge up and release. (And, as some eagle-eyed viewers have noted, Jung’s The Red Book allegedly appears in one scene of the film).
Some of the songs we hear in the movie (from The Weeknd’s recent album of the same name) reference spiritual themes. For instance, in “Hurry Up Tomorrow,” Abel admits guilt and expresses repentance for the sins of his past, hoping that God is looking down to see his confession, which he hopes will be enough for God to allow him into heaven. Likewise, in “Wake Me Up,” Abel laments spiritual threats which cause him to doubt his reality.
As a camera pans across a room, we very briefly see a woman on a bed with her breasts exposed. Anima wears a see-through shirt, revealing her bra. A woman wears a shirt that exposes cleavage. There’s a picture of a woman in a bikini.
Two women kiss, and then one of the women kisses a man. A man thrusts into the air at a party.
Anima stays the night with Abel in his hotel room, and it is implied the two have sex.
A man and woman fight; the man chokes the woman, but then he takes a glass shard to his throat, causing him to intensely bleed to death. Abel nearly drowns himself in his tub after falling unconscious. Abel gets knocked out when hit in the head with a wine bottle. A woman chucks a glass at a man’s back, causing it to shatter when it hits him.
A building burns. There are a few jump scares in the film as Lee engages with his psychological demons.
We hear the f-word about 85 times. We also hear the s-word twice and the c-word once. Otherwise, “b–ch” is used a handful of times. God’s name is taken in vain five times, and Jesus’ name is likewise misused once.
Men snort cocaine. They also drink concoctions mixed with codeine. Abel smokes marijuana. And he takes pills with a swig of liquor before a performance.
People drink liquor at a variety of parties.
Anima steals gasoline. Abel screams at his ex-girlfriend through the phone, telling her that she’s “nothing” and that he’s a legend.
A warning at the start of the film prepares viewers for an opening scene’s intense flashing lights—photosensitive viewers will have trouble with that moment.
Often with art, you have to understand the artist before you can truly understand the point of their creative endeavors. To one person, those black dots on a white canvas represent the painter’s sporadic feelings of depression and isolation. To someone else, they’re just black dots.
Hurry Up Tomorrow (the movie, not the album) almost certainly falls into that kind of category. To put it simply: I don’t have much experience with The Weeknd. The only song I know by Abel Tesfaye is “Blinding Lights,” and that’s only because he sang it during the Super Bowl once.
So as I watched his Hurry Up Tomorrow, I could pick up that there was artistic symbolism throughout the film; but without the proper context, it all just looked like black dots on a white canvas. It’s a frustration I suspect anyone who isn’t a big fan of The Weeknd will feel when watching this movie.
Still, what I can understand is this: The film is overlong, exhausting viewers with a near 45-minute opening wherein nothing of substance actually occurs—a serious problem in a movie that’s only got an hour left afterwards. And unfortunately, the word overlong also describes many of the movie’s scenes, which often linger five-to-10 seconds beyond what’s necessary; it’s like the director knew that what little dialogue was in the movie was insufficient to carry the project to feature film length.
But when Hurry Up Tomorrow does eventually meander into a plot (allegedly based upon on Stephen King’s Misery), we get a tale about confronting our sins and traumas of the past, lest they destroy us. It’s a nice moment, but it’s still just a redemptive moment in a sea of unnecessary spinning-camera shots and pointless scenes. Unfortunately, many of those other scenes contain the elements that give this movie its R-rating: some brief nudity, a violent scene and a whole lot of crude language.
I’m confident that the hardcore fans of The Weeknd will find this movie to be enjoyable. But as for most others, I think the only part of Hurry Up Tomorrow they’ll walk away with is wishing the movie would “hurry up” and end.
Kennedy Unthank studied journalism at the University of Missouri. He knew he wanted to write for a living when he won a contest for “best fantasy story” while in the 4th grade. What he didn’t know at the time, however, was that he was the only person to submit a story. Regardless, the seed was planted. Kennedy collects and plays board games in his free time, and he loves to talk about biblical apologetics. He’s also an avid cook. He thinks the ending of Lost “wasn’t that bad.”
