Despite it only being March, 2025 has already proved to be a great year for movies. There's a long list of high-profile directors who are set to have features released this year including Bong Joon-ho, James Cameron, Luca Guadagnino, Josh Safdie, Yorgos Lanthimos, and many others. One of the most anticipated this month is Mark Anthony Green's Opus, a new mystery thriller with a star-studded cast, that's already proving itself to be quite divisive.
Opus is the newest project from revered studio, A24. The film premiered at Sundance in late January and is already seeing a theatrical release. It stars Ayo Edebri as Ariel, a young writer who travels to the compound of elusive pop star, Moretti, (played by John Malkovich) to write a piece about his first album in 30 years. Needless to say, chaos ensues as Ariel investigates further into Moretti's sinister cult of fans. The film also stars big names like Juliette Lewis, Tony Hale, and Murray Bartlett.
I cannot remember the last film I was as excited to see as much as Opus. As a Bostonian, I absolutely adore Ayo Edebri and John Malkovich, in edition to being a major nerd for all things cultish. A24 is no stranger to producing weird, out-of-the-box films, they've garnered a reputation as the studio who takes risks and has understandably garnered a lot of praise throughout the years. I couldn't think of a studio more fit to produce a film like Opus.
Despite its strong cast, production design, and promising storyline, Opus falls short of greatness. It's clear what A24 was trying to do with this film, they were trying to recreate Ari Aster's Midsommar. When the A24 produced Midsommar, they were a much smaller studio, so it's understandable that they would try to recreate one of their biggest hits with more money, resources, and star power. But Opus is missing virtually all of what made Midsommar so great: passion, subtlety, and an unpredictable story that actually made sense.
Opus is not nearly as intelligent as it pretends to be. From the moment the characters arrive at Moretti's compound it's clear that the people living there are in a cult, there's no doubt about it. This group is called "The Levelists." From the unspoken secrecy to the matching outfits, the realization that Moretti is actually a cult leader is clear to the audience long before the characters. A lot of the strange activities that The Levelists participate in don't seem to have any rhyme or reason other than to shock the audience. In Midsommar, all of the cult's quirks had a meaning, something that connected back to their sense of community or folklore, but The Levelists are no Hårga.
What's most shocking of all is that Opus has a lot of mistakes that I can only describe as amateur. Early on in the film when Ariel is watching a youtube video, the timer never moves from 34 seconds. There's sloppy, obvious ADR galore and Moretti's frequent costume changes that are supposed to reflect eccentricity come off more as continuity errors. Eagle-eyed fans are actually in for a worse movie if they pay attention to the small details.
Opus is arguably Ayo Edebri's first bad movie, but her performance is easily the strongest aspect. Ariel is an empathetic, relatable character that the audience finds easy to root for. The same however, can not be said for John Malkovich who does not play Moretti with nearly enough charisma or magnetism to be a convincing cult leader, which is a real disappointment. It would not surprise me one bit if his performance was honored with a Razzie nomination. Credit should be given to cinematographer, Tommy Maddox-Upshaw who did a great job shooting the film, giving it a clean, interesting look.
The most clear, cut, concise way I can describe Opus is as a Midsommar knockoff. Unfortunately, Edebri's performance and the beautiful cinematography are not enough to redeem the film of its nonsensical plot and elementary mistakes. We can only hope that this isn't emblematic of A24's slate of films for 2025
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