Opus Is A Star-Driven Satire Mangled By Its Own Ambitions
Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich can’t save this bloody take on the cult of celebrity.
Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri) is entirely convinced of her Main Character Energy. Though she’s but a lowly journalist at a major music magazine — one whose ideas are constantly being pilfered by more seasoned writers — she knows she has what it takes to transcend. As she explains to a friend (Young Mazino) over lunch, her It Factor will be impossible to ignore before long. Soon, her humble fluff pieces will turn enough heads to leverage a true platform; soon, people will flock to read about her unique ideas and the things she loves and hates.
Ariel’s quiet zeal is the first of many themes skewered in Opus, Mark Anthony Green’s splashy debut film. As Green was once a journalist himself — he spent 13 years at GQ — there’s undoubtedly a piece of his past ambition in our plucky heroine. There’s also a smidge of self-effacing doubt in Mazino’s character: He tells Ariel that she hasn’t yet “made it” because she doesn’t have a story to tell. She has no past struggles to draw inspiration from, no experiences to inform her perspective. Until something really happens to Ariel, she’ll have nothing to set her apart from the sea of aspiring journalists with similar dreams. It may be the most intriguing aspect of Opus, if only because we know that “something” is right around the corner.
Just as Ariel is hunting for her big break, a prime opportunity falls right into her lap. Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), a legendary pop star cut from the same cloth as Prince or David Bowie, is staging a comeback after nearly 30 years in retirement. He’s invited a small group of journalists to his compound in the middle of Utah, where they’ll be the first to listen to his new album, Caesar’s Request. Ariel is one of the chosen, an appointment that’s obviously too good to be true. Her brush with Moretti will ideally supply her with the experience she needs to pull herself out of obscurity... but Green struggles to pull a similar feat behind the camera.
Green’s horror-comedy isn’t all that interested in breaking new ground. If you’ve caught any wacky social satires in the past five years — think The Menu, Blink Twice, or even Ready Or Not — you’ll know Opus is sampling from that same well. If nothing else, it’s at least visually distinct: Cinematographer Tommy Maddox-Upshaw can craft a memorable scene, especially in early moments designed to illustrate Ariel’s total isolation. His camera is assured when Green’s script falls short, establishing tension and terror even in sun-drenched desert scapes.
Things get decidedly more interesting once Ariel and her fellow journalists arrive at Moretti’s remote sanctum. His estate is filled with men, women, and children from all walks of life, each swathed in blue robes and perfectly keen to follow his every whim. Ariel is the only guest who can smell the culty vibes a mile away. Her editor, Stan (Murray Barlett), TV host Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), notorious paparazzo Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers), podcaster Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), and influencer Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami) are all too happy to play along with Moretti’s eerie communal fantasy. Perhaps it’s because they remember a time where Moretti dominated the public imagination. Ariel’s a bit too young to have seen the pop star in his prime, though his charisma hasn’t faded much by the time he’s ready to unveil Caesar’s Request.
Malkovich is in great form in Opus’ first half, shrouded partially in Moretti’s decades-long mystique, and partially showing off for newcomers like Ariel. (He also performs a trio of genuinely toe-tapping songs, written by Nile Rodgers and The-Dream.) His rapport with Edebiri keeps the film from slipping into total predictability; it’s just a shame that Green doesn’t give them many chances to explore their brittle chemistry. Their characters, like most in the cast, are vaguely sketched ideas in dire need of motivation. Green often leans on heady exposition — and a lot of monologues for Malkovich — in lieu of genuine attention to detail.
Malkovich pulls off the role of the power-hungry pop star, but the story surrounding him comes up short.
As Moretti’s guests settle in for the long weekend, turning in their cellphones and laptops and consenting to elaborate makeovers, Ariel naturally becomes more curious about the community. Moretti and his followers are “Levelists,” a kind of religion where one can reach nirvana, or even godhood, with a great artistic achievement. Levelists while away their days by shucking oysters in search of pearls — a practice that leaves their hands brutally scarred — or teaching art programs to the kids of the commune. Moretti guides Ariel through their rituals without hesitation, and in the beginning, it all seems like ideal material for an exposé. But all these creepy quirks don’t amount to much, especially once Opus strives to deliver a horror twist and, later, its fatal blow.
Green has a lot to say about art, criticism, and fandom, drawing loose connections between public figures and the schools of thought that orbit them. His efforts are admirable, especially given what he must have seen in his own brushes with celebrity at GQ. Despite that personal experience, however, Opus just rings hollow. For all of Malkovich’s charm, Moretti never feels like more than your stereotypical cult leader. His motives are similarly lost in translation: Is he staging a comeback to get revenge on the critics who gave him bad reviews, or trying to make the world a “better place” by spreading the message of Levelism? Nothing worthwhile ever materializes, even as Ariel strives to get closer to the truth.
Opus feels caught between the psychological battle between journalist and artist — its most interesting theme by far — and the cheaper, bloodier expectations of the genre. The latter keeps its premise from truly taking off, and in the end, you’re left thinking of better movies. It’s a frustrating fate for a film that starts off so assured, wearing its thesis proudly on its sleeve. But it ends as Ariel’s story begins: stranded in the middle of the road, without any defining qualities to set it apart.
