Opus (2025) - Magnum Opus or Massive Flopus?

Article by Chris Hyde

Studio: A24, Warner Bros Discovery, Makeready and Macro

Director: Mark Anthony Green

Synopsis:

"A young writer travels to the remote compound of a legendary pop star who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago. Surrounded by a cult of sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she soon finds herself in the middle of his twisted plan."

What initially looked like a great film judging by it's trailer, unfortunately has not stood up upon review.

The film visually looks good. The cinematography by Tommy Maddox-Upshaw is great. There are creative choices made with some of the angles and framing that work perfectly. The direction from first time journalist turned director Mark Anthony Green is good too. He manages to get some great performances out of his cast despite the lack of a good script.

Oh did I mention he wrote it too?

Yeah this is where unfortunately everything goes downhill. 

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The concept itself is an interesting one to examine, yes other films such as Get Out and Midsommar have explored similar themes, but you could make a case of actually committing to a commune in the desert style take on cults and spirituality is the progressive next step.

However the concept is not fully fleshed out and leaves a lot to be desired.

Which is a shame because I think you could make a great film about fandoms (especially in the music world - I'm looking at you Swifties), para-social relationships and cults it's just our current crop of talent just aren't being creative enough.

In a time of misinformation and "post-truth" you could easily make a cult film based on that.

The problem with Opus is that it's not really sure what it wants to say and the lack of depth in the main character and the cult make it feel very surface level while plucking elements like the Cyanide being in the champagne, the commune being in a very remote location and the leader having a charismatic grip on his followers from other cults such as Jim Jones and The People's Temple.

An atrocity still yet to be addressed on film and it's victims some of which are still alive having their experiences condensed into this mess of a film.

A film about cults doesn't work when fictionalised because all the elements that go into a cult are never fully realised on screen. That's partly because adding in examples of what cult leaders did to their followers is pretty brutal and wouldn't allow this film to be rated 15.

And whilst we're on this subject, if we're going to make biopics based on celebrities and the superficial why can't we have a decent take on harmful cults and learning what to look out for?

Malkovich puts in an amazing performance as this unsettling yet likeable and charismatic figure but his backstory is diluted so much that you don't really see anything but his cult status.

His music career is lauded for being the greatest of all time, among the likes of Freddie Mercury and Michael Jackson yet we don't really feel a sense of that. It comes across spoken not told through the visual storytelling that cinema is known for.

The supporting characters on the visit also feel shallow as their motivations for attending don't connect with their eventual demise.

They all had wronged Malkovich in some way but the method of conveying that through dialogue instead of actions or even symbolic hints (something like The Last Supper or seven deadly sins for example). The other cult members don't express anything and come across as robotic, where on a surface level it is plausible you don't get a sense of any brainwashing or anything that cults would usually do. Instead you just have them serve whatever they need the writer to do in any given scene.

The lead actress Ayo Edebiri does a great job despite the lack of depth. She convinces us the audience of the threat and how strange things are.

One thing that would've made this better and more unique to other cult films is if they actually did release the album Caesar's Request and made the film more of a musical biopic.

You could have loads of hidden references and hints towards the themes of the film.

All in all I'm not very happy with the end result. It quite frankly feels as though it spits in the face of actual cult survivors and provides us with a superficial, bland mess of an interesting and underexplored concept.

Hopefully we can actually breathe some fresh interesting talent in this industry before it collapses, the UK is on a terminal decline but there is still hope for the US to turn things around.

I give Opus a 5/10. 

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