Already in the beginning of “The idol”, an intimacy consultant is locked in a toilet. The Britney Spears-like pop artist Jocelyne (Lily-Rose Depp), who has just had a nervous breakdown, is to be photographed and filmed for her upcoming record release. Suddenly, she wants to show her breasts at all costs, and the cheering team really doesn’t want to be disturbed by some whiny rule rider killing the joy.
The Cannes festival’s most hyped screening in advance took place the other night, followed by a de luxe beach party with obscene amounts of Russian caviar, according to those who were there. The first two hours of HBO’s new series — which flirts with the “Euphoria” crowd but is set in the world of pop — delivers right away. All the advance rumors about revenge porn, strangulation sex, nude shocks and graphic masturbation with ice cubes and bdsm elements speak the truth.
Some of the early press reactions called the series an “odyssey through the site Pornhub”. It is clear that “The idol” is perhaps the most pornographic thing in Cannes since “The brown bunny”. There is very little inhibition or political correctness here. As hard-nosed record label boss Nikki (A “Succession”-brutal Jane Adams) says: “Mental illness is sooo sexy.”
Early this spring, Rolling Stone wrote an article with the selling title “So HBO’s new ‘Euphoria’ became twisted torture porn”. A text that purports to recount how the show’s female director Amy Seimetz lost her job after shooting 80 percent of the scenes. The reason? The artist The Weeknd, who created the series under his real name Abel Tesfaye, did not like how the “female perspective” influenced the storytelling. “Euphoria” director Sam Levinson was called in. Most of it was redone, and judging by the first two episodes, it’s hard to imagine a series with one more male gaze.
Photo: Genin Nicolas/ABACA/Shutterstock
Not unexpectedly, Levinson gave a different take on the story when he met the press the day after the world premiere.
– We understand that we have made a provocative series. But what Rolling Stone writes is completely foreign to me. I am sorry that they have deliberately excluded things that interfere with their theses. There’s a lot of that now, said Levinson, who, however, didn’t seem particularly worried about the spread of rumours.
– When my wife read that article to me, I looked at her and said: “We’re going to have the biggest TV hit of the summer!”.
Also Lily-Rose Depp, number two in the family that makes headlines at this year’s Cannes festival, feels alien to the spread of rumors about chaos during filming.
– It is always a bit sad and disappointing to read mean and false things about people you like. That didn’t reflect my experience on the set of “The Idol” at all, said the 23-year-old star who is the daughter of Johnny Depp and singer Vanessa Paradis.
Photo: HBO Max
Her constant undressed Jocelyne suffers from feeling that she has lost herself and become a product in the hands of others. On a party night in town, she allows herself to be seduced by a charismatic club owner named Tedros (Abel Tesfaye), who promises creative support in exchange for, among other things, hard sex. Tedros also turns out to be a cult leader somewhere at the intersection of the sex cult Nxivm and the Scientologists, but the Cannes screening didn’t quite get that far.
Photo: Niviere David/ABACAPRESS.COM/Shutterstock
– We live in a very sexualized world, especially in the United States. Pornography has a strong influence on young people and we see it in the world of pop and how it is reflected in the swamps of the net, said Sam Levinson.
When asked how he calibrated the sex scenes to feel safe, he replied:
– Sometimes, when things are revolutionary, they can go a long way.
Lily-Rose Depp’s idea about her character Jocelyne is that she has been performing since she was little and that nudity is part of her character.
– Her clothing style is not just about showing off, it permeates her entire life. She wants to tell you something about herself. Her physical undress reflects her emotional vulnerability, Depp said, revealing that in reality she had at least had the good help of an intimacy consultant.
Abel Tesfaye said in turn that the goal of “The idol” was to create something special, funny, that makes some people laugh and others get pissed off. He explained that Jocelyne’s character was inspired by his own experiences early in his music career and that he was grateful that he himself made better decisions than the character does in the series.
Photo: HBO Max
He described his slightly demonic character with a monotonous low voice, long coats and an oily whip of hair as a kind of Dracula figure who lures Jocelyne into his lair. He laughed when a journalist asked if he had met anyone like Tedros in real life.
– I don’t fucking think so.
“The idol” has an infectious drive, a luxurious staging that manages to create a certain illusion that it says something hot and radical about the dark side of celebrity culture. But of the episodes that were shown in Cannes, you mostly got the feeling that it is a victim of the very male gaze that it (possibly) wants to question. Metoo feels far away.
“The idol” premieres on HBO Max on June 4.
“The Idol”
The TV series “The idol” is created by the Canadian artist Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye together with the director Sam Levinson (the HBO hit “Euphoria” and the Netflix film “Malcolm & Marie”) and Reza Fahim.
The main roles are played by Lily-Rose Depp, who plays a pop star with vacillating mental health, and Abel Tesfaye, who portrays a charismatic club owner with a shady agenda. South Korean rapper Jennie Kim from Blackpink also makes an appearance.
Read more about the Cannes Film Festival here
