Opus (now streaming on VOD platforms like Amazon Prime Video) is an A24 movie that feels like a parody of an A24 movie. Directed by first-timer Mark Anthony Green and starring Ayo Edebiri as a young journalist invited to the remote compound of John Malkovich’s eccentric pop star, the movie follows a formula of self-conscious quirk and taffy-pulled dread as it navigates the gray area between glib satire and horror-thriller like far too many films that preceded it in the last decade or so. It struggled to find an audience – box office: $2 million – after its Sundance debut, and hopefully doesn’t represent a tipping point for a film distributor that’s been the spearpoint of a creative renaissance.
OPUS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
The Gist: We open with images of people in rapture. They dance, they sing, they grin, they jump for joy. They’ve lost themselves in the energy and atmosphere of a pop music performance. They’ve got stars in their eyes, and don’t forget that image – it’ll return deep in the movie. Now, cut to the New York City office of a magazine, where Ariel Ecton (Edebiri) has grown weary of pitching ideas for stories that her raging dink of an editor, Stan (Murray Bartlett), routinely gives to other writers. She’s 27 and she’s had this job for three years and she’s frustrated. Understandably. And Stan is absolutely the type of guy who’d refer to an assistant editor on staff as “my assistant” with all the dismissive condescension of a secretly insecure egomaniac who deserves a boot in the ass.
With this boss-employee dynamic firmly established, the plot introduces Moretti (Malkovich), a reclusive pop star who’s been off the radar for 27 years. He’s finally going to release a new album. Huge story. Huge! Stan, who’s old enough to remember a time before the internet existed and when Moretti was as big as Michael Jackson and dated Cindy Crawford, receives an invite to the musician’s desert compound for a listening party – and so does Ariel. She’s been alive about as long as he’s been in seclusion, and she gets to join a few select media types for this shindig? Curious. Of course, Stan immediately establishes himself as the writer of this story, so Ariel gets to take notes for him.
A few other pseudo-journos join Stan and Ariel on the private plane to Utah followed by a four-hour bus trip to the middle of the desert: TV talk-show host Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), radio jock-turned-podcaster Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), social media influencer Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami) and paparazzi photographer Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers). The place is far enough away from civilization that it should arouse suspicion if you’re not a movie character contrived to be an oblivious moron like all of these people, Ariel excepted of course. Upon their arrival, they’re greeted by a bunch of weirdos wearing giant red flags, and by that I mean they wear charm brac- er, I mean, matching blue robes that scream IT’S A CULT, and they have the glassy-eyed demeanor of folk who’ve had their brains removed and scrubbed squeaky clean and then neatly replaced. Although these people call themselves “Levelists,” nothing seems to be on the level around here.
After everybody’s cell phones and other means of communication with the outside world have been confiscated, Moretti arrives to congratulate his guest for having the honor of his presence. They eat a meal that begins with dozens of people at a long table taking a big open-mouthed bite directly off the same hunk of increasingly spittle-soaked bread. Stan and his media cronies don’t even bat an eye at this, possibly because they’re in the presence of a god among men – once dubbed “the Wizard of Wiggle” – who’s showering them with so much luxury, it makes regular extravagance look like negligence. Ariel seems to be the only one not cowed by all this. She spends the next day or so with her eyebrow cocked and nose wrinkled as Moretti’s minions doll up his guests and trim their pubes (!), because apparently nobody can have a big bush beneath their designer garb while watching him present his new songs and dance around in a metallic gold jumper. It’s pretty clear that this is just what happens when you’re visiting a megaceleb’s wacky bubble, and nothing sinister is going on at all. Nosirree. I’m sure everything’s just fine.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Midsommar and Get Out are the big reference points, with Blink Twice and The Menu showing their influence as well.
Performance Worth Watching: It’s so easy to like Edibiri in any role, especially the rare lead in a left-of-center feature, but this one doesn’t make use of her considerable comedy skills.
Memorable Dialogue: Ariel takes notes, unaware that Moretti’s reading over her shoulder: “Doesn’t ‘sycophant’ have an ‘o’?”
Sex and Skin: To quote the IMDb “parents guide”: “Penis visible on headless corpse.”
Our Take: Opus suffers from we’ve-seen-this-story-too-much-lately-itis, with several thematically challenging, smartly directed films featuring protagonists who unwittingly end up in hostile company in isolated settings so they can be tortured and traumatized by metaphors and social commentary. Get Out explored racial dynamics, Midsommar stirred ideas about tradition and “cultural differences,” The Menu skewered food-snobbery trends and Blink Twice threatened to wear out the formula but righted the ship with a highly entertaining post-#MeToo feminist revenge yarn.
Opus flirts with relevance by casting a critical eye at the cult of celebrity in the Swiftie era, with partially formed satirical renderings of new and old journalistic media (the questionable ethics of feeding at the trough of celebrity was a topic more deftly handled by Nightcrawler and, of all things, Notting Hill) and the workplace power dynamic (despite Ariel being young, Black and female under a White male boss, the subtext is weirdly blank). And here we sit, feeling the presence of many other movies, but not their undeniable vigor.
Also, a question for you: Who out there, if you’re cosplaying as a casting director looking for someone to play a head-in-the-clouds pop star, immediately thinks John Malkovich? There’s a fine line between casting against type and miscasting, and this skews to the latter. Malkovich portrays Moretti as a hybrid of Michael Jackson and Elton John, and although that instinct is on-point, the character as written is a smeared mishmash of Charles Manson, Prince and, I dunno, Kylie Minogue? Liam Gallagher? The Wu-Tang Clan and their one-and-only copy of Once Upon a Time in Shaolin? Meanwhile, Edebiri’s signature withering deadpan is sidelined to play the only sane person in a world of idiots, and while she’s certainly capable of playing the straight woman, she isn’t asked to do much more. And the supporting cast is left fighting to reach the baseline for amusing caricature (Lewis is especially underused, rendering the long-overdue JULIETTE LEWISSAINCE in limbo).
And while Green shows some capacity for a compelling visual approach, he often seems to be drafting on his influences. He directs like he’s overconfident in weak material, and the final product shifts between muddled storytelling and hitting thematic marks flat on the nose. And if I may untwist the pretzel, Green’s screenplay is too self-consciously contrived to be predictably unpredictable. Ultimately, we’ve heard this song too many times before.
Our Call: No Hope-us. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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