A messy conclusion to The Weeknd’s After Hours Trilogy

By Ethan Goddard

Hot take, but I thought the movie wasn’t half bad. There, I said it! As I was walking back to my car that night, I couldn’t help but wonder–why did people hate it so much? What did The Weeknd do here that was so polarizing compared to the other musician-made movies? 

Before I even get into the reasons it’s not doing well, let’s review  the musician movies that are considered well-done. When talking about this genre, the first ones that come to mind are classics like Prince’s “Purple Rain,” The Who’s “Tommy,” and arguably the most well known musician movie,“Yellow Submarine” by The Beatles. All three of these movies have vinyl soundtracks people purchase regularly at Wax Trax; even with some of those movies being over fifty years old.

The Weeknd isn’t the first modern artist to do this either–artists like Kacey Musgraves, Halsey, and Melanie Martinez have also adopted the film format. But there’s a couple of key differences between these artists’ movies and The Weeknd’s movie that I’d argue are crucial when understanding why it’s not getting love.

For one, all of the movies mentioned above (for the most part) heavily rely on the music, and play more as a musical. The plot is often used as more of a stepping stone to get from song to song. The delivery of the movies above is confident in what they are and what their intention is–making a kind of long-format music video. This makes it especially impressive when films are equally strong in their storyline as they are in their music. It isn’t very easy to pull off. This is where “Hurry Up Tomorrow” differs (and suffers). 

Instead of embracing the 22 track album, the movie feels almost completely separate from the record; with very little connection between aside from their names and a couple of the album’s tracks played throughout. The movie feels like it floats between wanting to be considered a regular movie and a marketing accompaniment to his final album.  

One of the things that places this movie into that weird space is its casting. While most musician-led movies put an emphasis on the artist and the artist alone, Hurry Up Tomorrow adds two characters played by the recognizable stars Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan, While the story revolves around a semi-fictionalized version of The Weeknd and his life, there’s a heavy emphasis on the plot over the music. 

I enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed the album. But the joint branding was a strange choice to say the least. When I initially listened to the album, I felt like there was a lack of storytelling compared to his previous two records. It felt more like a playlist. 

So with all of this said – would I still recommend seeing his new movie? Yes; but not for the reasons they may be marketing it. Before going into the movie, I’d relisten to the trilogy with the mindset that “Dawn FM” is the true ending to the After Hours character and storyline, while “Hurry Up Tomorrow” is more of an epilogue to The Weeknd as a whole. If you’re wanting more clarity as to why Abel is done with The Weeknd persona, go see the movie. 

When you strip away the occasional cringy scenes and the trippy visuals, you get a pretty solid story about the crippling pressures of fame and the often overlooked cons that come with it (i.e; addiction, loneliness, etc). And I don’t know about you, but I feel like there’s no better person to make a movie about those issues than the same person who embraced (and later outgrew) them in real life.