Set in the world of the music industry is Idol, a new television miniseries from Sam Levinson, best known as the author of Euphoria. The star-studded dark love story premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday. The audience rewarded her with a standing ovation of several minutes, as is customary here, but the first critics were, on the contrary, overwhelming. They sound like “colossal slimy loser”.
Monday’s Cannes premiere was attended by celebrities such as rapper Travis Scott and models Stella Maxwell and Julia Fox. However, the main actors attracted the most attention: twenty-three-year-old Lily-Rose Depp, who is an actress and the daughter of another guest of this year’s Johnny Depp, with the Canadian singer Abel Tesfaye, known as The Weeknd. Both signed autographs on the red carpet.
In the new melodrama, Lily-Rose Depp played pop singer Jocelyn, who had a nervous breakdown after the death of her mother and had to cancel a tour. Now he’s trying to make a comeback. She wants to release an album, organize a tour and defend the position of “the sexiest pop star in America”. However, managers direct her at every step, concert tickets are not sold as well as she would like. And in addition, the heroine falls in love with the predatory impresario of the Los Angeles nightclub Tedros, who was portrayed by The Weeknd. He turns out to be the founder of a modern cult.
This is a full-fledged acting debut for the Weeknd, so far he only appeared in the film Gem from 2019. Likewise, Jennie Kim, the twenty-seven-year-old singer of the popular Korean band Blackpink, appeared in front of the camera of the live story for the first time. In addition to her, popular YouTuber and singer Troye Sivan also performs in Idol.
According to to Variety.com the very first two episodes contain spicy scenes such as the one in which Lily-Rose Depp masturbates in an unusual way or when a leaked sensitive photo of her character’s face is covered in body fluids is spreading on the networks. As soon as we see the heroine for the first time, she demands from the managers that she can pose naked despite the contractual agreement.
The nervous collapse of the pop star, about whom the story is told, is reminiscent of how the tabloid media reported on the case of the singer Britney Spears. And the whole story is clearly meant to be a satire on the sensationalism of contemporary pop culture, in which being good is bad and being bad is the bare minimum, complements Deadline.com. “When you’re famous, people lie to you,” sums up one of the central ideas of the heroine played by Lily-Rose Depp.
Lily-Rose Depp at the Cannes Film Festival. | Photo: Reuters
The Weeknd conceived and wrote the story with Sam Levinson, the 38-year-old creator of the series Euphoria, which had a response especially with younger viewers on HBO.
In an interview with the magazine W described Levinson, when the singer came to him and referring to the devotion of his fans, said that he “could easily start a cult”. From this, the plot of Idol was born. “Basically, we wanted to show what happens when a pop star falls in love with the wrong guy and no one warns her in time,” sums up Levinson.
The project was not without controversy. Originally, director Amy Seimetz was behind it, but she quit in the middle of filming last April due to “creative disagreements”. According to the magazine Hollywood Reporter the script was being rewritten until the last minute, the producers were struggling with the budget, there were unsatisfactory creative conditions on the set, and the story, which was supposed to warn women against predators, finally underwent such changes that it sounds almost the opposite, the magazine glosses.
HBO responded to the reservations by saying that they replaced the director due to the insufficient quality of the first shots. “Unfortunately, they did not meet our standards and therefore we had to proceed with the exchange,” the company wrote.
According to Variety.com, the miniseries feeds the false belief that pop stars are puppets in the hands of powerful corporations and have no control over their own image. It is not at all apparent from the story why the singer played by Lily-Rose Depp should be an idol or why she should fall in love with the character embodied by The Weeknd. Rather than a would-be scandalous insight into the dirty world of show business, it’s a slimy male fantasy full of clichés, criticizes the server.
The first episode of Idol will be shown on Czech HBO Max on June 5. | Video: HBO
Even sharper is the British newspaper The Telegraph, which Idol denotes for “dumb, colossal slimy loser”. The dialogues sometimes seem unintentionally comical, and every other character turns half-naked in front of the camera, complains the critic.
A similar criticism is raised by the Hollywood Reporter magazine, according to which, despite the continuous nudity, the erotic scenes do not seem erotic, and the action on the screen is most believable in the moments when the Idol is not trying to shock at all costs.
Singer The Weeknd is known for hits like Blinding Lights or Starboy, on August 6, fans will hear it at Letňany Airport in Prague. The concert is already sold out. Actress Lily-Rose Depp drew attention to herself in 2016 in a movie Dancerwhere she portrayed Isadora Duncan.
The first episode of Idol will be available in the Czech HBO Max video library on June 5.
