The ill-founded thesis of "Opus"

There is a recent interesting film about a gathering where terrible things happen. No, it's not Opus, an A24 production that marks the feature film debut of Mark Anthony Green, who is also a journalist and editor at GQ. It’s Blink Twice, another directorial debut, this time by actress Zoë Kravitz, who chooses to stay behind the camera while directing her characters, led by Channing Tatum, through the torments of an idyllic island where horror unfolds. The premises of both films, Opus and Blink Twice, lead the viewer into the same depths: the abandonment of the natural state of things to enter a seemingly perfect, luxurious, and unreachable community. A waking dream that hides dark secrets. In Kravitz’s film, the events dangerously intertwine with the real-life scandals involving entrepreneur Jeffrey Epstein and rapper Diddy. Meanwhile, in Green’s feature film, the rookie director and screenwriter applies his journalistic experience to commit one of the biggest mistakes one can make in cinema: building a thesis-driven film. A text can do that, as can a book or an editorial, but a film, which follows specific rules and narrative structures, needs to be free from any assertions. Above all, it must strive to leave behind all arrogance or presumption, encouraging questions rather than making statements. A possibility that, as we will see, Opus does not offer.

Drawn by the return of one of the greatest pop stars of the century, a group of selected individuals are introduced to the impeccable and remote desert residence of icon Alfred Moretti, a histrionic (but not too much) John Malkovich, who perfectly fits the physique du rôle even though the character is not developed at all. Among these chosen protégés is the young journalist Ariel Ecton, played by Ayo Edebiri, whose career we hope Mark Anthony Green has not jeopardized from the start (thankfully, there’s The Bear and Bottoms, as well as the upcoming After the Hunter by Luca Guadagnino). After three years in an editorial office that does not value her, she is invited to listen to the album that will mark Moretti’s comeback, only to find herself wanting to escape from a true cult led by Malkovich’s character, which will not hesitate to impose itself on its guests, even with force.

Mark Anthony Green’s film is pretentious and naïve, a movie entirely geared toward reaching a final theory that, however, gets lost along the way. An eerie setting (which in Opus risks never actually being eerie) or the hiding of some unspeakable secret (which turns out to be disappointing) are not enough to tell the story that today popularity alone is enough to lead people and determine who will be in power. The film is a grand parable meant to intrigue, astonish, and shock—but it fails to intrigue, does not astonish, and, more than anything, annoys. An hour and forty minutes of film in which the prologue could directly merge with the final ten minutes, because that’s the only place Green really wants to take us. What happens in between doesn’t really matter: there’s a vague idea, a couple of stabbings, and some disgusting imagery, and the result is thought to be achieved. But what Opus actually tells us is nothing. It doesn’t even know how to entertain, which is absurd since it revolves around a protagonist who is supposed to be the ultimate stage performer, making the audience constantly wonder when the story will finally take the right turn. A proposition that eagerly awaits its conclusion, trapping not only the characters in Alfred Moretti’s residence but also the audience. And, just like the star’s grand plan, the film is of a destabilizing inconsistency. Someone should tell Mark Anthony Green that knowing how to write about entertainment does not mean knowing how to make entertainment in cinema.