Last month, director Sam Levinson and stars Abel Tesfaye (aka The Weeknd) and Lily-Rose Depp visited the Lumiere Theater at the Cannes Film Festival to watch the first two episodes of their show, The Idol. We had a premiere screening. ’ and a standing ovation. The lights hadn’t dimmed yet, but glitz and celebrity were revitalizing Cannes, where accolades are cheap. By the time the screening was over, the excited crowd was on its feet again, and critics were pouring out one of the most scathing reviews of the event of the year in a pan studded with thorns like “regressive.” “Chauvinism,” “Skin Crawling,” and “Dire Disaster.”
“The Idol” follows chart-topping pop star Jocelyn (Depp) as she prepares for her comeback after suffering a mental breakdown. Surrounded by handlers such as Hank Azaria, Troye Sivan, Jane Adams, Davine Joy Randolph and horror film impresario Eli Roth, Jocelyn makes a lot of money for a lot of selfish people. . One night at a dance club in Los Angeles, she meets Tedros (Tesfaye), a mysterious, smooth-spoken mouse-like figure. Eventually, she invites him to her mansion, they have a heated discussion in the shadows, and a mystery takes root: what the hell is she doing? this Man?
“The Idol,” produced by Levinson, Tesfaye and Reza Fahim, premiered on Sunday and was already a hot target when it hit Cannes. In April 2022, it was reported that original director Amy Seimetz had left the show during a creative overhaul. For whatever reason, in a trailer released three months later, HBO’s Brain Trust touted Levinson and Tesfaye as the “sick and twisted brains” behind “Hollywood’s most vulgar love story.” and decided to make the show even more infamous. But in March of this year, it received unwanted attention with a damningly accusatory Rolling Stone article that denounced Levinson’s version as a “rape fantasy.” The teaser has since disappeared from HBO’s YouTube channel.
Levinson, Tesfaye and other “idol” collaborators have vigorously defended the show and its creators. “The process on set was incredibly creative,” Azaria said at a press conference the day after the Cannes premiere, and Adams nodded. “I’ve been on many dysfunctional sets, believe me,” Azaria continued. “This was quite the opposite.”
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