The first episode of “The Idol” was released today on Max and on Prime Video with the Warner Pass. During its presentation at Cannes, the series with Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd caused a scandal.
The Idol begins its broadcast this Monday, June 5, 2023. Warner Pass subscribers on Prime Video can discover the first episode of the series by Sam Levinson, to whom we owe Euphoria in particular. This new series depicts the toxic relationship between a nightclub owner and a young popstar who wants to find the light of stardom again. In the casting, we find in particular Lily-Rose Depp and The Weeknd.
During its screening at the Cannes Film Festival last May, The Idol got slammed by the critics. Failing to be sulphurous, the press was able to qualify the series as “pornographic” or even “sexist”. On Rotten Tomatoes, the first two episodes garnered the lowest positive review rating in the review aggregator’s history, with just 27% positive reviews. It thus becomes the lowest rated series in the history of the site, according to Comicbook.
At the beginning, The Idol was to be created by Amy Seimetz (The Girlfriend Experience) with the idea of making it an acerbic criticism of the music industry. But it was discarded in favor of the creator ofEuphoria, and some criticize him for giving a degrading image of the female character played by Lily-Rose Depp, instead of denouncing the actions of that of The Weeknd. According to Télérama, certain scenes (including masturbation or sadomasochism) called “complacent” “raise the question of the motivations of the creator of Euphoria when he regained control of the miniseries.”
For festival-goers, it did not pass. The Idol premiered its first two episodes at the Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2023, with creator Sam Levinson and actors The Weeknd and Lily-Rose Depp in attendance. Since this screening, the series has been murdered by specialized critics. In the USA, variety denounces “a collection of clichés inspired by porn”, while the journalist of the New York Times, Kyle Buchanan calls the series “an odyssey in the form of a Pornhub homepage”. “Sexist, pornographic… No,” criticizes Gregory Ellwood, journalist for The Playlist.
In France, the critics are not kind to the series either: “terrible writing, clichés in shambles and nauseating remarks”, lists Anaïs Bordage of Slate, while Alexis Roux of So Film judges The Idol of “falsely trashy, immediately forgettable”. Finally, Renan Cros, presenter and editor-in-chief of Cercle Séries on Canal++, called the two episodes a “beautiful mess”: “Rather addictive when it’s a cruel real/fake biopic of Britney Spearsreally ridiculous and embarrassing when it turns into 50 shades of Grey: Popstar edition.” The series debuts on Max, a new platform of streaming from HBO, starting June 5, 2023.
Lily-Rose Depp plays Jocelyn, a depressed young pop star with a bright future ahead of her. When she feels ready to return to the front of the stage, she meets Tedros, owner of a nightclub. It’s love at first sight, but what looks like a dream will turn into a nightmare. Tedros is also the leader of a strange sect and leads Jocelyn into a descent into hell that could be right for the young woman’s career.
- Abel “The Weeknd” Tesfaye as Tedros
- Lily-Rose Depp as Jocelyn
- Suzanne Sound: Chloe
- Troye Sivan as Caleb
- Moses Sumney: Izaak
- Jennie KimAngel
The six episodes of the first season of The Idol will be available on the HBO Max streaming platform from June 5, 2023. In France, subscribers to Prime Video must have the Warner pass to see this series. To do this, you must subscribe to the Warner pass (7-day free trial) in addition to your Prime Video subscription. As a reminder, a subscription to Prime Video costs 6.99 euros per month. The Warner Pass requires an additional payment of 9.99 euros per month.