Hurry Up Tomorrow review – The Weeknd’s meta-thriller plays like a music video

Regrets? The Weeknd has a few. In Hurry Up Tomorrow, a celluloid roman-à-clef pegged to his sixth studio album, the Grammy-winning multi-hyphenate puzzles through the consequences of hooking up with a deranged groupie who forces him to reckon with his rock star flings. But it’s viewers who will probably be feeling rueful over nearly two hours lost in the end.

Though technically a thriller, Tomorrow takes inspiration from a real-life moment of weakness: the Weeknd – born Abel Tesfaye – losing his voice while filming The Idol TV series in between a global stadium tour. As with most of his artistic efforts, the Weeknd makes the job of distinguishing his sincere reflections from his satirical self-observations impossibly hard on audiences and smirks when they don’t get the joke. Recall his dizzying Super Bowl half-time show and face-bandage stunt he pulled to promote the After Hours album.

Tomorrow marks the Weeknd’s third try at making a film based on an album, but the first to run at feature length. It also reunites him with Trey Edward Shults, who directed the film and co-wrote the screenplay with the Weeknd and The Idol creator Reza Fahim. Like The Idol, Tomorrow wallows in the glamour of fame, drugs and sex – highs the Weeknd chases to keep him pushing through a combustible breakup of his own making. Throughout, the Weeknd’s vocal cords bear the brunt of the stress and pop on him, quite audibly, as he’s serenading a full house. Scared and desperate, he shrinks from the spotlight and makes a break for it – only to run into Anima (Jenna Ortega), a reveler he connected with mid-spiral.

This is no chance encounter. Anima is an unstable person with nothing to lose who we first meet setting fire to Abel’s childhood home. She doesn’t tell him that when the Weeknd bumps into her as he’s lamming it from his own concert; she only gives him a safe, easy escape. After an inconspicuous night on the town, a welcome release from their urgent problems, the two strangers repair to a luxury hotel suite to share more music and heartfelt emotions before falling into bed. When the Weeknd gets too relaxed and tells Anima “don’t leave me,” the words come back to bite when he tries to reprise his rock star life the next morning. A blindside hit to the head sends the Weeknd down a fevered journey into the pit of his psyche, and the torture doesn’t end when he comes to.

Amid the shocks and spasms, Tomorrow remains easy enough on the eyes. It was shot on 35mm film, which makes wide shots of Canadian Rockies and SoCal vistas really pop. The Weeknd dominates on screen, but you would struggle to take your eyes off him anyway; he oozes Michael Jackson-level energy, down to the ersatz Thriller jacket. When he and Ortega are in frame, their chemistry shines through. It’s just too bad their connection is spoiled on a film that unspools like one long music video – the essence of the Weeknd’s other short films.

Tomorrow can’t rush past its lack of clarity, both visually and in the storytelling. The payoffs should hit harder, but the film’s insistence on tarrying in the space between the characters’ sober and sick minds make for muddled set-ups. Gallingly, the film wastes time on Abel’s profligate drug and alcohol addiction that would’ve been better off handed over to Barry Keoghan, who plays Abel’s best friend and manager for a shockingly low amount of screen time. Shults is adept at relating mood through his work, but his reliance on kaleidoscopic transitions overflows here as well. And yet, you might excuse that auteur’s reflex if the film hadn’t cleared a runway for Anima to play armchair critic and offer up her pointed analysis of the Weeknd’s hit songs. Suffice to say, those scenes are more torturous than the actual torture that takes place in the foreground.

The album-cum-feature film is a twofer that has been tried before. But Tomorrow breaks from the tradition that Purple Rain and The Wall established. Ultimately, it’s little more than an emo rocker imagining what it would be like if he turned to his unhinged stalker for therapy – and thinking that makes him more evolved than the cavalier sonic rebels of yore. A well-constructed film could have really underscored the irony in that. But Tomorrow is too murky, meandering and self-indulgent an inside joke for audiences to remember it for more than its smirking moments. In time the Weeknd may come to regret this too, a missed opportunity.

• Hurry Up Tomorrow is out in US and UK cinemas on 16 May