Opus options John Malkovich at his best possible, however goes off the rails within the final thirty minutes.
PLOT: A bunch of journalists are invited to a distant compound the place a reclusive pop star (John Malkovich) plans to unveil his first album in thirty years. Nonetheless, after they arrive, they notice the artist has constructed himself a cult, which can or might not imply hurt to the assembled journalists.
REVIEW: You’ll be able to inform that Opus’s writer-director, Mark Anthony Inexperienced, is a former leisure journalist (he spent years working at GQ). Having participated in my share of junkets and set visits as a part of my work with JoBlo, I definitely discover it surreal to be taken into an entertainer’s orbit. It’s an exhilarating expertise, and Inexperienced, who’s clearly skilled this many instances himself, mines it fantastically within the movie’s first half, the place a younger author at a music journal, Ariel (Ayo Edebiri), unexpectedly will get invited to singer Alfred Moretti’s (John Malkovich) compound as he unveils what’s purported to be a musical masterpiece.
The primary hour of the movie, which is mild on the horror points being teased by A24, works properly as a form of satire on trendy leisure journalists and their relationships with the entertainers they write about. Malkovich is at his greatest in an atypical piece of casting. Who would ever think about him because the world’s biggest pop star? But, Malkovich, who truly minimize a number of tracks with Nile Rogers (of CHIC) and The Dream, pulls it off, with him trying like he’s having the time of his life enjoying a form of New Wave model of Vincent Worth.
Everybody appears in on the joke, with the performances pretty broad, with Murray Bartlett a veteran leisure journalist (and Ariel’s boss) who’s an outdated hand at rock star debauchery. On the similar time, Juliette Lewis performs a gossip columnist who has a historical past with Moretti.
This primary a part of the movie is a ton of enjoyable, however for me, it begins to go off the rails when the horror facet kicks in. Because the trailer reveals, Moretti’s the pinnacle of a form of New Age cult, and shortly, the journalists notice they’ve been lured to the retreat for sinister causes. Nonetheless, we’ve seen many cult films through the years, from Midsommar to The Sacrement, and each did the horror half higher. Once they kick in, the style elements virtually really feel like an afterthought, like Inexperienced shoehorned his reasonably enjoyable satire right into a horror movie, and the combination is uneven. It’s higher when it performs as a form of music-driven model of The White Lotus.
Ayo Edebiri, who’s unimaginable on The Bear, does her greatest with what quantities to a reasonably two-dimensional “final girl” function, along with her as the one journalist on the compound who finds the truth that this nineties pop star has a cult of character constructed up round him uncommon. Regardless of being our protagonist, she’s additionally a frustratingly passive heroine, even as soon as Moretti’s retreat turns into lethal. The one who’s actually having enjoyable on this one is certainly Malkovich.
One other drawback with Opus’s detour into horror, aside from the dearth of originality, is the truth that it’s not scary. Nothing right here occurs that you simply haven’t seen earlier than, and as soon as the carnage will get going, it turns into predictable, with little or no in the way in which of impressed chaos. It additionally has a really anticlimactic ending that tries to clarify away the motivations behind your entire plot, however this doesn’t quantity to a lot, ending the movie on a bitter notice.
Contemplating the expertise concerned, Opus turned out to be a little bit of a disappointment. It’s nonetheless a good first movie for Inexperienced, who definitely has a promising voice as a director, however the reality is that the final forty minutes of the movie don’t stay as much as the promise of the movie’s first hour, which is a ton of enjoyable. As such, Opus is a letdown, however it’s nonetheless value watching, particularly for A24 followers, of whom there definitely are many. For those who go in anticipating extra of a satire, you’ll in all probability like this greater than if you happen to had been to go in anticipating something scary.
