The Weeknd Insists We ‘Call Me By the Old Familiar Name’ In Manic, Doom-Laden ‘Hurry Up Tomorrow’ Trailer
If you are on a hunt for more clues about The Weeknd‘s upcoming Hurry Up Tomorrow film, the first trailer for the Trey Edward Shults-directed thriller won’t provide much clarity. The two-minute first look at the movie inspired by the singer’s album of the same name dropped on Tuesday morning (Feb. 4) and unlike many contemporary trailers it leaves more questions unanswered.
The action opens with a vertigo-inducing helicopter shot of an upside down cityscape as co-star Jenna Ortega’s character Anima intones, “Death is nothing at all. It does not kill,” over a shot of the Weeknd submerged in a bathtub up to his eyes.
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Then, things start to get a bit weird. As we get our first glimpse of Anima, her voice appears to merge with Abel’s as they say, “everything remains exactly how it was. Whatever we were to each other that we are still.” Keoghan’s character, Abel’s manager, Lee, then pops up with a weary look on his face as a ghostly voice announces (not for the last time in the tailer), “call me by the old familiar name.”
According to EW, in an interview conducted before the trailer dropped, Shults said it was “absolutely” possible that the movie is the vehicle by which Tesfaye will lay his long-running artistic alter ego to rest. “I tried to make the movie in a way where, for his fans and people who want to approach it at that level, I hope it’s very satisfying and you get a good meal out of it,” Shults said. “And for people that aren’t his fans and don’t know anything about him or even care about the final capping of the Weeknd, I think you still have a great movie to go through.
Speaking to Variety last month, Tesfaye confirmed that he was planning to retire his enigmatic Weeknd persona following last month’s release of the Hurry Up Tomorrow album, the conclusion of a trilogy that began with 2020’s After Hours LP and continued on 2022’s Dawn FM. “It’s a headspace I’ve gotta get into that I just don’t have any more desire for,” he said of his stage name. “You have a persona, but then you have the competition of it all. It becomes this rat race: more accolades, more success, more shows, more albums, more awards and more No. 1s. It never ends until you end it.”
The movie follows insomniac Abel as he’s pulled into an “odyssey with a stranger [Anima] who begins to unravel the very core of his existence.” Fans will recognize the by-now-familiar gold leaf-decked hooded robe in the trailer that Tesfaye has been wearing in recent performances in a bit where the bleary-eyed singer is hoisted on a lift up to a stage at a packed arena.
As a techno track bubbles up, we see Keoghan’s Lee trying to hype up Abel — “stop self-doubting, you’re f–king invincible!” he says — whose performance appears to make Anima tear up in the audience. She assures the singer, “this is all very intense, but I’m not trying to hurt you,” adding, “I’m really sorry about this. I really am,” as she sits next to a seemingly dazed and confused Abel on a bed.
The finale 45 seconds are a headlong rush of hectic imagery, including Anima pouring gas in a home as if to torch it as Abel gets more and more freaked out by the chaos around him. In keeping with the album trilogy’s visual presentation of an often-battered, spun-out singer, Shults told EW that the film is about an artist “on the verge of a mental breakdown,” explaining that he meets a woman [Ortega] and they “go on this odyssey together. It’s a mix of psychological thriller and drama. I honestly feel like I’ve never seen a movie quite like it.”
Ortega added that she thinks her character is another version of the singer, “a side of him that the persona the Weeknd doesn’t show as much.” The Hurry Up Tomorrow film — co-written by Shults, Tesfaye and The Idol co-creator Reza Fahim — will premiere in theaters on May 16.
Watch the trailer below.
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