Opus: Deeply Dark Entertainment Media Satire is a Made-For-Malkovich Fun Ride
By Liz Braun
Rating: B
As long as you don’t mistake Opus for a thriller, it’s a fun ride at the movies.
The campy pitch-black comedy skewers entertainment reporters and the cult of celebrity and does so with a wondrous performance from John Malkovich as a superstar-turned-cult-leader.
Writer-director Mark Anthony Green tells the story from the point of view of Ariel (Ayo Edebiri), a young journalist who can’t seem to get any decent assignments at her important music industry/pop culture magazine. Her editor, superannuated white guy Stan (Murray Bartlett) is both pompous and oblivious — de rigueur traits for the industry, some would say — and he treats Ariel as if she were his assistant.
The big news in the music world is that reclusive superstar Alfred Moretti (Malkovich) is about to release a new album, his first in almost 30 years. Moretti’s publicist (Tony Hale) announces the comeback; an exclusive listening party has been organized to introduce the new music to a select group. Fans rejoice all over the world.
Those invited to the listening party almost become celebrities themselves, so rare and desirable is the gathering. Of course, Stan is invited. So are others on the music scene who’ve been around as long as Moretti: a TV host (Juliette Lewis), a celebrity photographer (Melissa Chambers) and a rival musician/broadcaster (Mark Sivertsen). Two comparative newcomers are added — an influencer (Stephanie Suganami) and, surprisingly, Ariel herself.
She is thrilled to be going on the ‘listening party’ adventure and hopes to write a separate piece to go with Stan’s main story. He quickly shoots down that idea. She can take notes, he tells her — for his use.
The lucky group going to hear Moretti’s new album is ferried to a self-sufficient compound in a remote part of the desert. Moretti’s followers live and work there on his behalf, creating art and living lives devoted to him and his notions of creativity.
As soon as the journalists arrive at the compound and are asked to hand over their cell phones, you know things will go south. Everyone is watched; everyone is judged; it’s creepy and weird.
Only Ariel expresses any fear and distrust of the goings-on.
Moretti, it turns out, can really carry a grudge. People begin to get picked off, one by one. Things get gory, although probably not as gory as horror/thriller fans would like — but as far as we can tell Opus is a satire, not a thriller, so here we are.
Key to the movie’s point is a puppet show put on by the children of Moretti’s compound, a marionette display called “The Tragedy of Billie”.
In the puppet show, horribly disfigured and diseased-looking rats play a horde of olde-timey reporters, fedoras and notepads included. The celebrity they are interviewing is Billie Holliday, and they pepper her with dozens of inappropriate questions about rehab, drug use, her weight, her love life, her career downturns, etc. etc. It’s way too close to what celebrity “interviews” look like now in the age of clicks, and it’s hugely uncomfortable to witness.
Maybe it's easier to make a point about misogyny and racism if you relegate those things to the past. Opus has a point to make about how people are led on, used and manipulated.
Malkovich’s performance is one reason to see Opus. Decked out in outlandish costumes, spouting contemporary lifestyle gibberish and performing his own singing, Malkovich is as fully Malkovich-y in the role as you would hope.
As for that singing: the music in Opus is from Nile Rodgers, The-Dream, Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans.
Opus: Written and directed by Mark Anthony Green. Stars John Malkovich, Ayo Edebiri, Juliette Lewis. In theatres across Canada Friday, March 14.