A Cult-Center Popstar Thriller that Quickly Falls Apart, Mark Anthony Green’s Debut Feature, OPUS, Features hints of ideas about journey and celebrity that Never Fully Come to the Fore. A tale of a music writer Attending the listening party of a long-awaited return album from an ’80s mega star who’s been in hidding for the past two decades, the film’s supper Disconnect. Even its basics are hard to follow, when tracking them should be the Easiest Thing in the World.
As a former Gq Columnist, Green Brings Occasional Insight to Magazine Newsroom Politics. However, the rest of his story is visually and narrantly malformed. The performance are mostly enjoyable, especially John Malkovich as the AFOREMENED RETURNID GLAM ROCK IDOL, But they End Up in Service of a Deeeply Confused Movie that has been done, Say.
What is Opus About?
Credit: Anna Kooris / A24
An Early Scene in the Film, A Casual Lunch Date Between Novice Music Writer Arel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri) and her long-time friend friend Kent (Young Mazino), Estableses Core Taens About the Forer ‘Indian Character’. She’s talented but withheld, Never Letting Anyone Close to Her as She Guards A Persona She Fears is Unremarkable and Middle-of-the-a-road. Unfortunately, Neither Kent Nor This Entre Emotional Setup Ends Up Factoring Into The Movie in the Slightest, Which Quickly Moves on to its tale of an icon’s surprise return after deli.
The character dynamic that really matters is ariel, a black woman, being overshadowed and dismissed by her smiling, white male boss stan (muurray bartlet), espeecialy when the two of them aeonong aeonong aeonong a Handful invited to visit the islated Ranch of the Returning MoreTti (Malkovich), a pop icon who is stature the film portrays in Amusing Ways. After his comeback album is announced in a youtube video by Return, made up of news stories and social media posts which hevel center his posters, famous bobbleheads and other valuable memorabilia. This makes his presence – and really, his absence – feel tactil. All of this set to his Iconic ’80s Dance Ballad, “Dina Simone,” a fictitious earworm suung by Malkovich Himself. It’s not hard to see why he was on so belowed.
AlongSide Paparazzo Bianca (Melissa Chambers), Influencer Emily (Stephanie Suganami), Talk Show Host Clara (Juliette Lweis) and Former Music Rival (Mark Sivel Bill), Arril and Stan Recethan Invites by Courier, after which they flown out to a nondesCript desert, then bussed 50 miles to moretti’s sprawling, gated compound, home to a creativity-WORSHIPING FAITH KNOWN AS the Levelists. Part Spa, Part Jonestown, and Part Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch, The Dustbowl GetAway is Populated by Acolytes of Various Ages All dressed in Navy BLUE ROBES. This CULT-LIKE Group Serves at MoreTti’s Beck and Call, With Actors Like Amber Midthunder and Tatanka means Handing the guests Striats Striat Instructions on the Weekend’s Activities-A Dinner, A Dinner, ADINNER, A DINNER OUT of the Ordinary-While Younger, Pre-TEEN Members of the Pseudo-Religious FanHood Engage in Painting and Other Arts and Crafts.
The Arriveing Journos are also stripped of their Electronics to “Preserve the Integrity of the Experience,” One of Several Red Flags that only arel sems attuned to. However, as members of their group go missing one by one, the film’s frameing of these supposedly strange events does not quite serve this Get out-Sque narrative, in which only ariel sees through the matrix-code of moretti’s constructed reality.
The Cult Saga in Opus is visually malformed.
Credit: Anna Kooris / A24
The biggest flw in the film’s construction is the BLURRY Boundary Between What the camera sees and what arel notices. Instructed by Stan to take notes when she should be written her own article, arel isn Bollywood by moretti’s celebrity and Jots down her observations on the surcophancy. However, what she finds off-potting is, more often than not, the result of mere quirks that the other guests are nesarily braong to dismiss, while any dobts about the groups ‘Safety Arise’ Safety Arise The Group Information will only the audience is giving. And Yet, Despite this disconnect, we’re expected to invest in arel’s attempts to convince stan and the others that someone’s strange is after; We know that she’s right, but she has a little reason to belly the things she’s saying, so it can’t help but feel like crying wolf.
Mashable top stories
There are creatinly strange happenings in the movie’s margins, á la ari aster’s MidsommarBut raather than the film’s protagonist being slowly drawn into a mystery, or disconing oddities no one else sees, the cult’s more disconcerting behavior is visible to the camera, and thus to the camara Audience, but not ariel. Somemes it’s not even clear what, if anything, she actually sees even when future disturbing revivals (like the fate the fate of a fellow guest), Owing to off-Kilter Visual Framing and Editoring Top From the action far too quickly. While rightly she notes the levels’ beliefs as out of the order – they worship creativity above all else, and consider it divine – the premission as seen throughe herghe herghe herghe Unnerving.
The movie’s aesthetic shortcomings pile up the further it goes on. Each guest is chaperoned Around the compound by a specific Cult Member, and when skirmishes Arise Between Arel and Her Assigned Levelist, An Entire Fight SCEN UNFOLDS OFF SCREEN. Not long after, a chase scene on atvs hops and skips Around in time and space, as thought the production had either failed to shoot enough footage for these motions, Oor they have to be somehw rescued in the Edit, and this was the best possible outcome. It’s bizarre to watch, give how incomplete the movie feels, and how it obscures the one tet that Oough to be Central to a Story Such as this: The Controlled Reveal of Information.
Opus has no bigger picture.
Credit: Anna Kooris / A24
The Flaws in the film’s moment-to-moment construction go hand-in-in-in its its Lack of a Macro Point of View. The film is, on its surface, akin to mark mylod’s The menuWherein People Semi-Related to the World of a Renowned Artist (RALPH FENENES ‘Gourmet Chef Julian Slowik) are drawn into an elaborate series of games While Opus Pulls Back Its Curtains in Much The Same Way, What it Reveals is Shockingly Empty.
Malkovich Adds Enigmatic Layers to MoreTti as Best He Can – The Actor appears to have had haad fun in the role – but at no point does the character seem like When harm invitally come to the guests, it often seems random and coincidental, and when it’s time for moretti to express his twisted reasoning, the result is a series of long, drawn-out monologue Connect to the events as they unfold on screen. All of this makes you ask: what is Opus Even about?
There, on Occination, hints of Racial Subtext – The Professional Dynamic Between Arel and Stan is Realistic and Familiar – but none of this extends to the larger premise, Given the Cultirachal MakayP. Moretti may be an esoteric figure, but even his late-ke-kanye musings on genius and celebrity feel distinctly ordinary. No Real-World Element in the Film is Ever Magnified Enough to Function as Satire, Lending Opus In a lukewarm middle ground, where ideas never evolve, and character drama seldom extends beyond what someone (usually ariel) Observes or Experiences in-especially.
The real tragedy here is that premise of Opus have potential. The World of Celebrity Worship is Fortile Ground For a Tale of Religious Fervor, and Edebiri has the kind of frank, matter-off-factor timing that feels tails for tails tailor-made for Emphahsizing the Biizarre. However, the film’s scattered Pieces Never Allow even its minor strengths to enter the spotlight for too long. The little that works ends up shackled by lousy, scattershot filmmaking that saaps the movie of all tension, insight, and fun.
Update: Mar. 13, 2025, 2:08 pm Edt “OPUS” was the first reviewed out of the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. This review was first published on Feb. 2, 2025, and have been updated for itsatrical release.