If he didn’t drop the idol, this woulr have a way better rep

I don’t think this was movie of the year or anything but the slack is genuinely pissing me off

just gotta block out all the noise

the only important thing is your own personal enjoyment and how you felt about it

Loooool

Wanted to sit with my thoughts for a little before sharing them.

I’ll start by saying this: this is NOT a great film by any means, but if The Weeknd didn’t exist at all and this was an entirely original film by Trey Edward Shults, it wouldn’t be getting anywhere near the bad critic reception that it’s getting. I go to the theaters sometimes 3 times a week, and I see basically every new release that comes out as long as I have the time to, and I can easily rattle off 10 films from this decade that are much worse than this here. Again, it’s not great, but at worst it’s a pretentious avant-garde film that’s trying too hard to be artsy and thought-provoking but ultimately fails to miss the mark due to a lack of strong writing and storytelling.

My positives are the music (obviously) and the cinematography (everything besides the rotating shot that was spammed fourteen hundred times). This film looks and sounds great. It’s very engaging visually, and tonally it feels like a Trey Edward Shults film. I think where Abel had the most creative control was with the broad story, but in terms of scope and direction, it doesn’t feel like Trey was overstepped at all here. With the story not being all the captivating, they should’ve went all out with the avant garde s*** and just made it as trippy and sensory-blitzing as possible, and I think the film would’ve fared better overall if that was the case, but unfortunately they tried to tell a meaningful story as well and that brings me to the negatives.

Número uno: the writing. There is absolutely nothing going on narratively in this film whatsoever. It is 105 minutes of literal emptiness. The central conflict driving the plot forward is… his girlfriend not answering his texts. If that’s the piece of your screenplay that sets the story in motion, you need a new screenplay. It’s not really a matter of not understanding what’s happening in the story, since I see some criticizing it for that, it’s more of a problem that there’s just nothing going on. The film could essentially be boiled down as a very bad day in the life of The Weeknd. The climax is also horrendous and drawn out. The pacing of the entire film was a little off, there are multiple scenes that should’ve ended earlier, but the climax especially was the biggest offender of it.

Next negative: the characters & the acting. There are 3 on-screen characters with a speaking role in this film, and by the end of the film, you learn nothing interesting or noteworthy about a single one of them. They’re all extremely one dimensional, vapid, and don’t feel like real people that exist. Abel’s acting is not egregiously bad, but I think it’s definitely not good enough to be the leading man of a theatrical film. He has a good on-screen presence, and his line delivery is believable most of the time, but acting is more than just delivering lines on screen. He lacks any subtlety whatsoever, and doesn’t really convey any emotion other than sadness.

Which brings me to the tears. I don’t know who told this nigga that crying equals good acting, but whoever it was he needs to cut them off for life. This nigga was in tears literally every other scene. I’ve never been so emotionally exhausted by the end of a film while simultaneously not feeling any emotions at all. Michael Caine had a great quote about characters crying, he said:

”Men will do anything but cry. When you cry, you must fight the tears, and if you fight the tears, the audience will cry for you.”

Actors shouldn’t be crying at will every time something emotional happens, their character should be resisting the urge to cry, and therefore that leads to the audience experiencing the emotion for them. It seems like Abel had tears rolling down his cheek every time he was on screen. With more practice, he has the potential to play a supporting role in a film, but he has a very long way to go if he wants to be a leading man in Hollywood at any point in the future.

All in all, the film is a big, ambitious creative swing, but it ultimately strikes out. It is drastically better than The Idol, and I think most of the “worst of the decade” criticisms being flung at this film are much more appropriately directed at that horrible TV show. I definitely think there are some people online that are just joining in on the fun by bashing it unfairly, but I think most of the lashings this film is getting are sadly deserved.

If Abel really wants to pivot into the Film & TV world, he needs to take a serious step back and understand that it’s okay to just play a part in someone else’s story. We don’t need a vanity project every go-around, especially if they’re gonna be at the level of quality of this film. I do think I enjoyed this more than the average person since I am a huge Weeknd fan, but I still don’t think it’s a great film by any stretch. Still, I respect the ambition and I think it’s cool that my favorite artist got a major motion picture made and released in theaters.

Overall, I would give this a 5/10. Not the worst thing in the world, extremely far from the best, and maybe a little too tailored for people that are already fans of The Weeknd rather than trying to tell a story that anyone can experience and enjoy.

I do agree with you on Abel crying in the film. It was pretty excessive and felt like he was leaning on it as a crutch at times.

My biggest issue with the movie is that it thinks it’s deeper than it is, but on top of that, it’s a story and themes that he has presented better in the album and honestly every previous album.

I’m excited for him to tell new and different stories.

Movie had a lot going for it and I liked all of Trey Edward Shults other movies. I thought it was going for something really interesting but the execution of it really didnt work

So did this man just scrap whatever the half face thing was?

wake me up late night performance

seems like this guy is his new vocal coach

Tracks like Reflections Laughing, Enjoy The Show, Given Up On Me, Drive, Give Me Mercy have infinitely more meaning now

I was waiting the whole time for the Reflections Laughing voicemail to pop up and was surprised it never did

Red Terror poem too

Yep. the one we got would have meshed perfectly with it

maybe the tracks in the movie were the only ones originally intended for the album? Wake Me Up lyrics were different, so were the title tracks, and they were on the first pressing, he also used the first pressing Without a Warning

he said that a lot of the songs off this album were inspired by the film itself. he was writing songs while watching scenes of the movie

feel like the demo versions of wake me up, without a warning, and hurry up tomorrow were the only songs he had at the time

Something definitely changed after Sao Paulo because he said the movie was inspired by the album at first...

damn this guy apparently been with abel since at least 2015

he was the assistant of the older dude who passed

@spotifysongwriting did a brief profile on mike if anybody's interested.

just got out of the theater, and while this is not film of the year by any means, it’s really not as bad as people made it out to be. story is a mess but abel definitely improved as an actor

Again, I agree with @fader he is not at all a bad actor, he needs to take a step back and play a less major role in a few films then gradually once he’s learnt the trade, attempt something avant garde.

so basically what i've been saying when ranting about dawn and hut rollouts. #noticing.

he needs to take a step back, release those albums, shut up and dribble and try to land roles in films by respected auteurs

breh. this guy was reshooting idol, WHILE touring usa, WHILE doing the album, then re-shaping the album because of the sofi incident, WHILE doing pre-production and then production on the movie, WHILE making songs for Idol