Hurry Up Tomorrow Review: All Style, No Soul
Fame, trauma, isolation… and a whole lot of nothing.
Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan, both seem to be acting in a completely different - and a much better - movie here.
Good Points
Jenna Ortega actually commits to her credit
Barry Keoghan brings energy to otherwise flat scenes
Strong visual aesthetic
Bad Points
Painfully self-serious
Says a lot, means very little
Indulgent and overlong
Symbolism without substance
Tonal mess
Boring
It really, really wants to be profound.
This film desperately wants to say something about a lot of things - fame, isolation, trauma etc - all the big words, but what it mostly shows is Abel wandering through beautiful rooms looking sad while other people indulge him too much.
It’s also funny for all the wrong reasons, as watching Anima slow-dancing while Abel is strapped to a bed was too much, and Barry Keoghan ranting about stardom on a private jet - these moments are suppose to feel intense, but they just feel like accidental comedy.
Abel barely speaking might be the smartest choice here.
Whenever he does talk, it’s usually to say something that sounds deep but collapses if you think about it for more than five seconds, with vague, moody, empty lines, so the silence works better for him. and that’s not a compliment, either.
Trey Edward Shults feels like he’s on autopilot.
I’ve seen what he can do - Waves had emotional punch. It Comes At Night had restraint, and here we get shifting aspect ratios, slow-motion montages, and a handheld camera that borders on seasick with stylized lighting everywhere.
I wonder whether he ever asked himself why.
Hurry Up Tomorrow also tries to mix fantasy and reality, and also accidentally blends melodrama with parody into the mix, and by the time Anima started explaining Abel’s own lyrics back to him I knew it had all got too much for me.
It’s indulgent. And then more indulgent.
The film is just obsessed with its own symbolism to the point of, well, I don’t know what, and I am sure fans of the film will tell me I don’t get it or something, but c’mon - long, moody stretches of Abel staring into nothing is not ‘deep’ or ‘meaningful’, however hard it tries.
But I can certainly forgive messy, and I can even forgive pretentious, but I cannot forgive boring.
It’s a dull film of vibes that are meant to mean something, but really don’t.
Final Verdict
Hurry Up Tomorrow is self-serious, indulgent, and convinced of its own importance without earning it.
Jenna Ortega and Barry Keoghan try, the visuals try, and even the sound design tries.
But the film itself? It’s mostly empty spectacle pretending to be depth.