Opus: All Filler, No Killer (Early Review)

The art of stories based around throwing groups of unsuspecting people into a remote location, with the plan of picking them off one by one used to be Movie Making 101. However, Mark Anthony Green’s celebrity cult-of-personality-focused Opus is the latest A24 thriller that adheres to the mentality of “all filler, no killer.” Substituting subtext for scares and desperate to find something original to say in its unsubtle musings on journalistic integrity and the fight for a voice, the film is merely a meandering misfire with shaky performances and scarce horror or humor to bring its concept to life.

The film begins with a young, hardworking journalist named Ariel Ecton (Edebiri) who, despite her ambition and promise, struggles to be taken seriously at her job at a popular Pitchfork-esque music magazine. Her ideas and pitches are often handed off to other writers by her boss, Stan (played by the much-underutilized Murray Bartlett). That changes when the magazine receives an invitation from the illustrious and elusive pop star Alfred Moretti (Malkovich) for select writers to visit his property for a listening party celebrating his newest album—specifically naming Ariel as one of the invitees.

Moretti’s comeback has been thirty years in the making, and in that time, he has gathered a cult of superfans who have formed their own insular community with Moretti as their leader. Moretti’s music predates Ariel’s time, allowing her to approach the experience with more distance compared to her co-workers, who all appear to be won over by the eccentricities of Moretti—including his unusual demands that most simply shrug off as bizarre artistic genius. Yet Ariel continues to stay to see where this will all lead, as she decides to spend her time writing a companion piece to the magazine’s album review about the cult of Moretti.

It’s no surprise that Green’s feature film debut was inspired by his time working as a journalist for GQ Magazine. Th film is a work that, much like its protagonist, feels eager to get a voice out, loudly bouncing between religious and Hollywood satire without the sharpness, wit, or perspective that makes them compelling. Opus has an idea of what type of film it wants to be but doesn’t know how to define itself. The problem is, in a post-The Menu, Blink Twice, or even Glass Onion world, audiences expect things to go awry; they have seen this film before and know the rich character is a lunatic, which makes the decision to spend the majority of the runtime placing Ariel in bizarre interview after bizarre interview while only hinting at larger, implied off-screen violence all the more confusing. The film seems completely unconcerned with sustaining any sense of suspense or impending doom, instead having characters laugh off all the red flags of this cult as if they were visiting the commune from Midsommar.

Additionally, Edebiri’s inherent charm makes her a solid character for a horror film, but her placement as the lead disappointingly highlights her limitations as an actress. As Ariel, the character spends most of her time in disbelief, playing above it all. Edibiri’s performances are a fine-line to walk, as she typically allows her characters to be at arm’s length, evoked in a layer of irony that reads: “I can’t believe that I’m here, either”—a low-energy effort that eventually permeates the rest of the film. Even Malkovich, as exciting as it is to see him outside of his usual range, immediately offsets the tone and appears largely miscalculated.

Slightly miscast as Moretti (a clear hybrid of Jared Leto and Kanye West)—a live-wire narcissist who believes his Celebritydom is Messiahdom—Malkovich carries the film’s energy on his back, but the character’s popularity is hard to buy into without hearing his better-than-a-normal-movie’s-quality-but-still-subpar pop hits (provided by Nile Rodgers and The-Dream) or witnessing how he works his holistic schmoozer charms. An actor known for his intelligence and on-screen intensity, Malkovich is both a suitable match for a man always holding the cards and thinking three steps ahead and a detriment to the film, as audiences are already anticipating the other shoe to drop.

By the time the film reaches its conclusion, Green arrives at a head-scratching twist that feels entirely unearned. As a twist, it only somewhat works because the audience is still holding out hope for something more from this film. At best, Opus‘ attempts at Hollywood and religious satire are toothless and fall flat. At worst, it arrogantly self-positions critics and journalists as the victims in a story transparently reflective of artists like Kanye West, Jared Leto, or Diddy—celebrity figures who see themselves as messiahs and have recently faced allegations of sexual violence from real victims.

In the end, despite its promising cast and timely commentary, Opus fails to cohere its Hollywood satire and thriller elements, struggling to find a perspective against its familiar premise and delivering little more than shallow, recycled ideas about celebrity culture. Any unsettling imagery in the film feels less like deliberate horror and more like weird-for-weird’s-sake—but for a filmmaker clearly borrowing from Midsommar and The Menu, it’s almost impressive how tame it all feels, like turning in copied homework but dumbing it down to avoid suspicion.

still courtesy of VVS Films

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J.A. Birney

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