BGFX

1y

In recent years, the ‘visual album’ has become a part of many a musician’s album cycle. From Beyoncé’s Lemonade, to Janelle Monáe’s Dirty Computer, to Jennifer Lopez’s This Is Me… Now: A Love Story, those projects tend to be lavish, thematic affairs that largely exist as super-sized album-length music videos. Hurry Up Tomorrow is not that. Sure, the latest album from Canadian mega-star The Weeknd – aka Abel Tesfaye – is also called Hurry Up Tomorrow. But his film of the same name, while linked to the album, isn’t a visual album project – it’s a full-on psychological thriller feature film, directed by Waves’ Trey Edward Schults, in which Tesfaye plays an alternative version of himself.

“It’s kinda like Raging Bull and Persona meets Purple Rain,” explains Schults, who wrote the film alongside Tesfaye and Reza Fahim. The film was inspired, in part, by an incident that Tesfaye experienced on stage at LA’s SoFi Stadium, at the end of his 2022 tour, when his voice completely gave out. Later, he learned that there was nothing physically wrong with his vocal cords – and what he experienced was psychological in nature. “I think it was a test,” Tesfaye tells Empire. “What happens if this thing that you’re relying on too much is taken away from you?” It not only helped inspire Hurry Up Tomorrow, but marked a turning point in his entire conception of ‘The Weeknd’. “I think that I needed that experience, on the biggest stage of my career, because that way I couldn’t ignore it,” he says.

The result is a film that holds up a dark inverted mirror to Tesfaye’s own experience with fame. “The main character’s name is Abel. It’s very much implied that this is The Weeknd,” Shults explains. “But the Abel you see in the movie is not the Abel I know personally. It’s drawing on personal things that he’s wrestled with his entire life, imagining if he’d surrounded himself with the wrong people and made some wrong choices.” Enter Jenna Ortega’s Annie, set to challenge everything Abel thinks he knows. “She’s the feminine side of Abel. The sweet side,” Ortega teases. “He’s been neglecting his anima the female part of himself and has no understanding of what that is in his life because ever since he went on to live this life as a musician, he felt pressured to be something else.” Get ready, then, for far more than a mega-length music video: it’s time to see The Weeknd like never before.

DevilOrAngel

1y

Need full story

BGFX

1y

New movie photo from the magazine

DevilOrAngel

1y

Damn I’m so excited for this movie man

ABYSSUS

1y

Symbols of the Anima

Water (lakes, oceans, and the moon) – Reflecting emotions and the subconscious.

The Muse – A mysterious, creative force behind artistic inspiration.

The Femme Fatale – When the anima is negative, she can appear as a deceptive, destructive force.

The Divine Mother – A nurturing, spiritual figure leading towards higher consciousness.

The Siren – A seductive and often dangerous representation of unchecked anima influence...

I believe we have seen all these versions of Anima in this Trilogy, whether it's the woman in red or the moon or water, to his mother in a divine light or now Jenna Ortega being Anima directly in the movie.
I guess it's all a symbol of Abel getting in touch with his creative side and emotional side, becoming Abel....

ABYSSUS

1y

Back after the new article...

HurryUp Abel

1y

GOAT for a reason

BGFX

1y

Full article from the magazine

BGFX

1y

Full article from the magazine

BGFX

1y

@aristilde

BGFX

1y

Full article from the magazine