Hurry Up Tomorrow Tries to Get Deep – But Drowns

Hurry Up Tomorrow

★ ½

Hurry Up Tomorrow is 1 hour and 40 minutes of “what the hell did I just watch?” It’s confusing and disjointed – so lost in its style-over-substance that any semblance of story is washed away by quick-cut, fast panning cinematography. It feels less like a cinematic experience and more like a videographer’s excruciating, long vacation video of that time he followed The Weeknd on tour.

The film stars Abel Tesfaye playing himself as The Weeknd and Jenna Ortega as Anima. Having spent some time analyzing the film post-credits, I still have no idea who Anima is supposed to be, though I can confirm Ortega is a wonderful actress. You have to tip your hat to someone who can take a role with barely any substance – inside a film with even less – and still make it watchable.

Jenna Ortega as Anima
© 2025 Lionsgate

Ortega is the only reason there are any stars on the board. She shows up and delivers – far more than the film deserves. With more to play with, she might have saved it from disaster.

The allegory is supposed to be about the struggles of stardom, the price of fame and the toll it takes on the body, both physically and psychologically. But Tesfaye lacks the acting chops to pull this off. His best scenes amount to little more than concert footage. We’re supposed to feel something compelling about his character, but I found myself caring very little. It may be that the filmmakers are relying upon Tesfaye’s star power for some immediate sympathetic buy-in. But the script gets lost in its own overindulgence of symbolism. It’s damned near impossible to decipher why we should care.

The Weeknd and Barry Keoghan
© 2025 Lionsgate

When the film starts, Anima is setting her childhood home on fire. But why? Certainly there’s trauma in her past, but we’re privy to very little of it except for a phone call from her mom, rightfully angry that the family home was set ablaze. She gives us a little dialogue but it’s written with almost zero depth. It’s amazing Ortega manages to deliver her lines as convincingly as she does.

The cinematography is certainly full of style and quick shots, but overly so. Some of it is reminiscent of Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers, a style that hurt that film’s narrative too. It’s as if the cinematographer and editor decided to make up for a lack of story by cutting together rapid-fire shots of quick zooms, fast pans and close-ups of The Weeknd’s sweat-beaded face.

One compelling scene gave me hope the film might pull off a last-minute ‘Aha!’ moment. Anima has tied The Weeknd to a bed, doused him with gasoline and is a finger-slip away from dropping a lit Zippo. It’s a tense, compelling scene that ultimately goes nowhere, leading us further down the film’s dumpster fire of confusion.

Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye
© 2025 Lionsgate

Die hard fans of The Weeknd might enjoy the film, if only because his music is in it. Otherwise, Tesfaye walks around angry, depressed, sad and paranoid. Contrast that with rising star Ortega, who apparently can spin gold from straw like Rumplestiltsken.

There will no doubt be film school professors calling this “bold” or “experimental,” but there’s a fine line between risk-taking and incoherence – and this film doesn’t just cross it, it dives headfirst. It might be called Hurry Up Tomorrow, but I really wanted it to just hurry up and finish.