Opus ★★

Released: 14 March 2025

Director: Mark Anthony Green

Starring: Ayo Edebiri, John Malkovich, Juliette Lewis, Murray Bartlett, Melissa Chambers, Tony Hale, Stephanie Suganami, Mark Sivertsen & Amber Midthunder

Mark Anthony Green’s directorial debut Opus doesn’t gel as cohesively as it should, especially when it possesses all the right ingredients on the cinematic plate. Coming off the back of his short film Trapeze, U.S.A., his feature-length debut stars The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri aka one of the brightest comedy/drama talents around. It features a delightfully eccentric John Malkovich, playing an over-the-top, pretentious music artist Alfred Morettti. While it’s not quite the level of Trent Reznor & Attitcus Ross’ Challengers soundtrack, having Nile Rodgers and The-Dream is an inspired choice. It coalesces into a brilliant scene with Moretti strutting around to his new electro dance sound from his new album, gyrating, invading people’s personal spaces whilst dressed for his guests as if Daft Punk was ordered off Temu. Edebiri’s ‘Get Out’ vibe check and facial expression says it all. So, what could go wrong?

Green’s film is honest enough to recognise that Opus’ concept doesn’t reinvent the wheel here, and that’s ok. Not every film needs to be a groundbreaking spectacle and can exist on their own terms. The easy comparison to Zoe Kravitz’s Blink Twice, Olivia Wilde’s Don’t Worry Darling, Ari Aster’s Midsommar or Mark Mylod’s The Menu all explore similar themes – a crazy, isolated location, occupied by a sycophantic leader who has no shortage of off-kilter devotees willing to do anything to protect their new world order. Collectively, they would make fantastic double-bills at your local cinema! But when these sub-genre films are presiding in predictability and familiarity, in distinguishing itself from the oversaturated pack, Green’s film doesn’t leave enough of a mark.

As a former journalist for GQ, Green’s close approximation to celebrity culture is tailor-made for Opus’ world. Having spent six years on the script, he pokes fun at the cult of personality, these larger-than-life entities who follow artists and the image they’ve crafted for themselves. Whether it’s Kanye West with his listening party for Ye, the Teddy Perkins episode from FX’s Atlanta or Charlie Murphy’s Hollywood Stories on Rick James, these are heavily borrowed influences that only reinforce what Opus is trying to highlight. Green channels this fascination into Moretti who recollects about Chuck Norris and Muhammad Ali destroying flies with their fists or dodging questions on whether it was true he bought Freddie Mercury’s teeth. He becomes an enigma, the type of eccentric stories that are easily consumed and mythologised for a fanatical public. 

What Green is tackling here is a complex beast. Can we separate art from the artist? When we live in the age of celebrity that celebrates fan-worshipping and normalise inexcusable behaviours, these feelings are heightened in Opus to a Jim Jones level of cult devotion where its sinister twist is more than just drinking the Kool-Aid. But as much as Green takes a stab or in one scene, lets an arrow fly and shoots Murray Bartlett’s Stan Sullivan in the arm, that’s almost as far as the conversation goes. Instead of pushing the proverbial envelope with the weight and substance of its endeavours, that lightweight arrow ends up misfiring just as it was getting interesting.

The story revolves around Ariel Ecton (Edebiri), a print journalist working under a micro aggressive and gaslighting editor boss Stan. With aspirations to write a book, she suddenly finds herself plucked from a three-year obscurity of “mid as fuck” writing and underappreciation to travel to Green River, Utah where the legendary artist Alfred Moretti has announced his comeback album after a 30-year absence. Alongside other invited guests – TV personality Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), social media influencer Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami), journalist Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), photographer Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers) and Stan (who’s there just to look good while Ariel does all the work for him), they spend time with the reclusive artist on his commune. Exposed to the inner workings of Moretti’s world, the red flags are aplenty. They hand in their phones, their laptops are confiscated and are assigned a 24/7 concierge worker to attend (and watch) to their every need. When the critics start disappearing one by one, Ariel is left to investigate. 

Opus’ biggest satisfaction comes from Robert Pyzocha’s production design and Shirley Kurata’s costuming. The passion is in the details, from the commune looking like an inviting wellbeing retreat to Malkovich’s ever-changing lavish outfits, adding theatricality to his character. Throw Tommy Maddox-Upshaw’s cinematography into the mix, and they all contribute to the growing weirdness that happens, scenes where I can’t look at a bread roll or a bean bag in the same way again.

But in peeling back the layers, those stylistic impressions are mostly what carries Opus through. Green and his cinematographer have a good eye for painting the canvas, setting the mood and tone. Early on, there’s an incredible zoom shot on Ariel walking around the city, as if to suggest she’s a small cog in a big wild world. Placing that picture into the frame is where the cracks start to appear. 

Green’s script never seems comfortable in finding another gear to its story, happily suggesting and stating all the crazy antics the commune gets up to (including shaving the lady garden, picking pearls from oyster shells or reciting from the book called The Meditations of Level), but without the dialogue or conversation to engage it through to its big reveal. The film’s slow pacing doesn’t help either as it plods along through the “why” in a muddled labyrinth of rushed twists. Is there empathy to be felt amongst the chaos? Should we re-evaluate our own relationships with how we reconcile art and the artist? Should we care about the critics who are picked off one by one? Is there enough screen time to understand why Moretti’s devotees or “Levelists” (as the film depicts) would follow him? Does Ariel get enough time to investigate and put the pieces together? You certainly can’t blame audiences for feeling unsatisfied and frustrated when its supposed desired effect leaves more questions than answers on the table. 

It’s a “vibes movie” that leaves its leading characters with the heavy lifting to address the film’s shortcomings. As ‘the final girl’, Edebiri’s underutilisation is evident yet does the most she can with the material provided. She nails social awkwardness to a tee, saying a lot without words and conveying her emotional state through her eyes or body language. When afforded humour, she’s sharp-witted as ever. The vehicle is mostly set up for Malkovich who shines the brightest, embracing Moretti and his warped point of view with both hands. But the film’s other big surprise turn is Amber Midthunder’s Belle, who goes from Prey to Predator in less than ten seconds when keeping tabs on Ariel’s movements.

There’s a good premise at heart. The intention is there. Green certainly has talent and ambition for the themes he wants to explore, and one hopes he gets further directorial opportunities to delve into his curious mind. But I can’t help but think if another script redraft would have solved the trick he tried to master. For something billed as a “one-of-a-kind experience”, Opus feels like a missed opportunity rooted in style over substance, and ultimately, has been done better before. And that can only be disappointing.