Hurry Up Tomorrow

Directed by Trey Edward Shults, Hurry Up Tomorrow follows The Weeknd (Abel Tesfaye) as he suffers an emotional breakdown and eventually befriends a mysterious woman named Anima (Jenna Ortega). Filmmaker Shults, armed with a screenplay written alongside Reza Fahim and Tesfaye, delivers an avant-garde endeavor that opens with some promise yet slowly-but-surely wears out its welcome, which is a shame, certainly, given the admittedly eye-opening bent of the picture’s audacious opening stretch – with the watchable vibe perpetuated and heightened by Shults’ confident, commanding visuals. And while the picture has been suffused with a handful of striking interludes and set-pieces, including (and especially) The Weeknd’s jaunt through an eerily empty urban locale, Hurry Up Tomorrow builds towards a fever-dream-like midsection and second half that contains few (if any) elements designed to wholeheartedly sustain the viewer’s interest – with the reliance on hackneyed plot developments (eg everything involving Ortega’s tiresome figure) only exacerbating the arms-length feel. By the time the rather endless third act rolls around, Hurry Up Tomorrow has cemented its place as an ambitious misfire that, one can only hope, marks a one-off misstep by the otherwise rock-solid Shults.

*1/2 out of ****