From the opening scene, it was clear Opus would live down to its overinflated name. The word opus implies a masterwork, this film delivers the opposite: a scattered, bloated mess trying desperately to mean something.
Written and directed by Mark Anthony Green, whose résumé includes being a GQ Magazine writer and podcaster, his only previous directing credit is a short film titled Trapeze, USA. So naturally, someone handed him $10 million to make this incoherent, self-important attempt at suspense-horror. That figure probably doesn’t even include marketing.
The real mystery? How this script, riddled with plot holes and intellectual posturing got greenlit. Did John Malkovich and Juliette Lewis, both Oscar nominees, lose a bet? Or were they just cashing a check?
Malkovich, miscast as an aging rockstar releasing a long-awaited album, seems to sleepwalk through the role. No depth, no tension, no reality. Just a hollow performance in a hollow film. As for Ayo Edebiri, who plays lead character Ariel, I watched to see what she’d do outside The Bear. Sadly, she delivers a near-identical performance, offering no new dimension.
The plot, if you can call it that: The rockstar invites a curated group of people to his compound to hear his new album. Upon arrival, their phones and laptops are confiscated. Soon after, guests begin dying, apparently so Ariel can write a book about it. Why? Something about how society moved from leaders of brute strength to Ivy League credentialed manipulators. Then it spirals into a lecture on junk media, divide-and-conquer propaganda, and the collapse of cultural standards.
There could have been a story here. But instead, we get a confused mix of pseudo-intellectual ramblings and wannabe social commentary buried in a film with zero emotional investment.
And a Sundance Official Selection 2015? They sold out decades ago to the same people that would give them the time of day. A place for young artists to showcase their talent.
Opus is less a work of art and more an expensive vanity project dressed in philosophical $10,000,000.00 mumble.
Where did they spend the money?
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Chu The Cud 