The Idol

I love so many actors in this series - but man oh man oh man....it's not good. And I really REALLY wanted to like it. It has heavy inferences that lead you to acknowledge the tragedies that have befallen the likes of Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Amanda Bynes, etc etc etc. It gives the viewer a snapshot into why so many of them have suffered mental breakdowns and self-medicated. But there's no depth in this series. I feel like all they wanted to do was continue to glorify the savage treatment of young female artists by those who they should have been able to trust the most. They could have really made this into something - but they squandered the opportunity. If you want to see a lot of scantily clad, seemingly young (minor?) women being taken advantage of by everyone around them - then I guess this is the show for you. Personally, my time is worth more then what this show deserves.

I'm shocked at the number of reviewers claiming this show reflects real life. This was like watching a large budget porno. It was so unnecessarily saturated in sex, I found a coherent story hard to tease out of the sleaze. I simply couldn't keep watching it. In retrospect, my final impression of the show reminded me of a line from the old movie, Butterflies Are Free, when Mrs. Baker declaims degeneracy, obscenity and nudity as a part of life, "I know [it's real life], Mr. Santori. So is diarrhea, but I wouldn't classify it as entertainment." If this show is like real life, you can keep it. I need some fresh air.

What an embarrassment.

This series got into hot water because director Amy Seimetz, who was supposed to direct this series, and tell this story from a feminist point of view of a girl being exploited by men and the music industry, left because of intense hostility from the cast and crew. Then Sam Levinson took over and turned into an exploitative torture porn fest. At least that's what the Rolling Stone magazine article said.

And boy were they correct on this one.

There appears to be a good, interesting story about the sleaziness of the music/movie industry and how it mistreats and exploits pop singers, reaching out to get heard. But it never gets the upper hand, and is more interested in showing its very young-looking female lead nude and performing gratuitous, pointless long sex scenes that add nothing to the story.

I don't think I can listen to the Weeknd's music anymore, as Tesfaye not only plays a horrifically sleazy nasty character in this (his acting is low-par and this is his first acting role) but he's also the producer on this show. And the series also uses his songs during the most extreme sex/sadomasochistic scenes. Like WTF?

Almost nothing is from Joslyn (Lily Rose Depp)'s point of view. Her inner thoughts and feelings and past are mostly told by other characters. The cringy, offensive dialogue is just there to shock, and therefore, it's tedious and vomit-inducing.

I'm sick to death of men in Hollywood doing this to female characters on screen. It was bad enough with Blonde and how they disrespected Marilyn Monroe. Now this?

Enough. You are not special, you are not edgy. You are just wrong and untalented.

I felt so uncomfortable watching it . The only good thing about the film are the shots , the colors and the easthetic . Anything else just sucked . It is soo RAPY and hypocritical. It's a bad parody of fifty shafes of grey , but then directed by a very creepy person . I think its ridiculous The Weeknd directed his own sex film .

Everything is bad , the acting , the lines , the story . The ending ebviously doesn't make any sense .

It gives me so much weird vibes and its sooo uncomfortable to watch .

I kinda tought maybe he wanted to make a statement in the film about the music industry , but every point he makes is just weird .

This gives me high school play vibes with lots of nudity, sex and shock value with absolutely no content. I think they thought they will just add a lot of famous last names to the mix and that will do it, but this is really bad. The plot is incredibly not interesting, the actors have very little to work with so no wonder that they come out as doing a bad job. But I don't know if any actor would save it. I was tired after 10 minutes, but I thought I would give it a benefit of a doubt. At 20 minutes something inside of me was breaking. It's clear now that Sam Levinson cares only about aesthetics which is not my kind of tea anyway and not much about content. The dialogs are like an AI idea of what a human dialog should be. This is really embarrassing for everyone involved.