In Sam Levinson’s Idol , stardom brings pain. A Britney-esque songstress named Jocelyn – beloved by her fans and paparazzi alike – is preparing for her comeback after having a nervous breakdown a year ago while on a world tour lost his mother. Now her team is desperate to make up for the damage. The dance moves had to be sexy, the album cover had to feature her nearly naked, and her team would stop at nothing — not even lock the shoot’s intimate coordinator in the bathroom — to get what they wanted.
This is where The Idol let us down at the beginning of the first episode, giving us a little insight into the state of the music industry The impact of insecurity on young women and how it fails to protect them from exploitation. New HBO Series – “Sick and Twisted Minds” From Euphoria Creators Levinson and Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye (As First Trailer Says) — sure to dominate Sunday night social media conversations when it launches next month. That seems to be what everyone is talking about ahead of the world premieres of the two episodes at the Cannes Film Festival.
Jocelyn, vulnerable and pliable beneath her It-girl exterior, is cast as Depp at every step of the emotional scale, be it at the end of a grueling video shoot Sobbing, or throwing her body in the nightclub in ecstasy. But in Hollywood movies of The Idol (by cinematographer Arseni Khachaturan, most recently Luca Guadagnino’s Bones and All), there is always someone eager to take advantage of it. When she meets Tesfaye’s character, a conniving nightclub mogul named Tedros spots her on the dance floor, and he decides he can not only make her a star, but his star. She fell into his suffocating grip, which felt like love to her but abuse to the rest of us. (Tedros is so obviously repulsive that their sex scene, while graphic, isn’t pornographic at all.) Besides Jocelyn’s best friend and assistant, Leia, the show’s voice of reason (played by top actress Rachel Sennott) and her creative director, Xander (a confident Troye Sivan)—seem to actually see her.
The Idol will go down in history as a high-budget misogyny flop or a graphic depiction of horrific costumes Probably depends on who you talk to. Viewers who fell for Euphoria (another show about teenage fears) will probably do the same for this one. It’s loud, brazen TV that will do exactly what it’s set out to do: get people talking.
