The Weeknd series “Idol” was released

HBO Max aired the first season of The Idol miniseries, which marks the debut of Abel Tesfaye (aka The Weeknd), one of the most influential figures in the music industry today, as an actor and producer. The most ambitious project of the singer became the most scandalous. The word “failure” is often found in reviews, however Igor Gavrilov disagree with this definition.

The most informative of the five series of “Idol” were the first and last. In the first one, the viewer meets pop singer Jocelyn (Lily-Rose Depp), who is preparing for a world tour, and her team – producers, concert managers, dancers, clip makers, PR people. All united by one goal – to return Jocelyn to the top after a pause associated with the death of her mother. The well-established mechanism is invaded by the “black swan” – the owner of the underground club Tedros (Abel Tesfaye), who almost literally bewitches the heroine and becomes the architect of her comeback. He turns Jocelyn’s house (in reality, Tesfaye’s own house) into a creative commune with elements of a sect, and his friends, singers and songwriters, create a new repertoire for her, for which she refuses to release an almost finished album.

In the finale, Tedros, a sadistic pseudo-guru, himself becomes the object of manipulation and looks like a beaten dog. Director Sam Levinson, best known for creating the super-successful Euphoria, retells with The Weeknd the timeless story of a talent that can live anywhere, from the seductively fragile body of Vanessa Paradis and Johnny Depp’s daughter to a rat-tailed pimp. , which by its main activity is Tedros. A great artistic gift may belong to a bitch, and a phenomenal producer’s instinct – to an alcoholic, devoid of morality. Many figures in the music industry saw themselves in Tedros and were probably happy with the finale, in which the heroine pulls him almost by his “tail” out of the swamp of vices and pushes him under the beams of spotlights.

In February 2023, The Weeknd passed the mark of 100 million listeners on Spotify per month – this is truly one of the most popular pop artists on the planet, there is no bar in this industry that he has not yet reached. Idol is Tesfaye’s ambitious entry into the territory of “serious art”, albeit with elements of pop erotica by Adrian Lyne and Paul Verhoeven. And this exit did not work. In the process of filming, the series changed its director, even before the premiere, Rolling Stone magazine published an article about the toxic atmosphere on the set, and after the premiere of the first series at the Cannes Film Festival, Idol was booed both literally and in critical reviews. If there were no complaints about the work of Lily-Rose Depp, then Tesfaye’s acting work was declared monstrous.

The singer really does not demonstrate the heights of acting craft in his series. And yet, Tedros alternately arouses interest, disgust and pity, the viewer is not indifferent to him – what do you want more.

But more importantly, The Weeknd accurately described the creative process in today’s music industry. The recording of the album is the work of a large number of very different and very strange people, the currents of inspiration flow between them contrary to the laws of physics. Chloe (Suzanne Sohn), a girl Tedros picks up on the street, turns out to be the songwriter of the film’s best song, “Family.” The inhumanly gifted vocalist Isaac does not pretend to be the frontman in the Tedros commune, he is satisfied with the existence of “in the flow”. Deadpan sound producer Mike Dean doesn’t show up at his console without a flask of steaming concoction. At the same time, Isaac is played by the brilliant R’n’B singer Moses Sumney (he does not collect stadiums, but The Weeknd knows his price), Dean is Dean himself, and Eli Roth, in ordinary life, the director of horror hits, plays Andrew Finkelstein, tour organizer Jocelyn, which is unmistakably Arthur Vogel, tour organizer for U2, Madonna and Lady Gaga, from Live Nation. Tesfaye emphasizes in every possible way that the characters are very close to real people, which means that the creative process itself looks something like this in life.

One of the main accusations against The Weeknd is that he made a film that exploits female sexuality in the spirit of erotic films of the 1980s and early 1990s. Domestic audience will say – in the spirit of the repertoire of video salons with VHS-cassettes. Reading discussions about the sexualization of show business in Kumir, one recalls today’s debate about whether Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann has the right to arrange a harem for himself behind the scenes of concerts. Abel Tesfaye may not be the greatest cinematographer, but his series at least captured the narrowing of what is acceptable in the entertainment industry. The film contains both a fictitious dispute about whether Jocelyn’s single cover photo with sperm on her face can be placed on the cover, and the mention of very real topics like Kanye West’s call to forgive Hitler, who closed his way to the stadiums. It seems that now The Weeknd himself understands that if he wants to continue his career as a filmmaker, he will have to come to terms with the fact that there are much more “no” in show business. Unofficial sources in HBO Max say that the series will most likely not have a second season.