"It was a smoother process," Abel "The Weeknd" Tesfaye said of collaborating with director Trey Edward Shults.

He mines the scene in “Hurry Up Tomorrow, ” where, ironically, it arrives too late. The tedium of an incoherent first act paints the charismatic performer — one of the last few decades' most popular — as an unempathetic protagonist in a nonlinear and nonsensical world.