Opus Film Review: The Cult of Celebrity

Mark Anthony Green’s debut feature Opus masterfully dissects the cult of celebrity and laughs at a culture obsessed with notability.

But how well can you know someone who you are so distant from in physical proximity, socioeconomic status and circumstance? In all actuality, we only truly know the version of them they want the public to see. Stranger yet, that understanding does nothing to deter us from pinning after them and filling in the blanks of their lives with our imagination and speculation. 

Mark Anthony Green’s debut feature film Opus masterfully dissects our obsession with celebrity culture and the danger that can lurk behind our ignorance towards the inner lives and motivations of famous people. His film points out the absurdity and dangers of blindly following people whose character we allow to go untested due to their celebrity status. 

Opus follows Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri, of The Bear), a young, untested journalist. While she has been a writer at a prolific and culturally important music magazine for the past three years, she has yet to write anything to drive her name into the spotlight. Over dinner with her friend Kent (Young Mazino, of Beef) she explains she decided to write specifically about celebrities because it is a topic everyone is interested in. 

Ariel figured if she could write bigger stories at her magazine, she would eventually make enough of a name for herself that she could fulfill her dream of writing her own novel. While she doesn’t quite know what she would write about, her desire to be seen as an author worthy of being listened to is enough motivation to drive her forward.

As Ariel contemplates her career trajectory, news leaks that the famed king of 90s pop Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich, of The Portrait of a Lady) is releasing his 17th studio album after not being heard from for the past 30 years. Moretti, nicknamed “Mr. Glamboyant” and known for his extravagant theatrics, sends out elaborate yet personal invitations to his pre-release listening party. The invitees are a myriad of “who’s who?” ranging from talk show hosts to influencers and even Ariel’s boss, Editor-in-Chief Stan Sullivan (Murray Bartlett, of The Last of Us). 

While Stan is dissecting the bizarre invitation in front of his entire office, another one inexplicably arrives for Ariel. She does not know why she has been invited but begins research on the eccentric star as she sees this as the opportunity to finally have a shot at writing something people will read. However, once Ariel arrives at Moretti’s compound, she begins to understand that he has built a literal cult following. 

Moretti’s followers have all been hand plucked from oblivion, drawn into his community and initiated under the religion he follows to become “Levelists”. Levelists believe they will reach transcendence through artistic brilliance. Moretti serves as their natural leader, a once-in-a-generation talent himself, and ensures his followers there are no lengths too far to go to in order to make their own masterpiece. Ariel is the only person who has not fallen victim to Moretti’s charms and knows something sinister is coming. Their dynamic allows the film to descend into a deliciously gory and delightfully introspective cat-and-mouse game. 

Opus shines brightest when it’s centering on how ludicrous celebrity culture and our obsession with it can be. News of Moretti’s return swamps the media. Every talk show, news outlet and social media platform picks up right where they left off the last time the reclusive singer was promoting his music. When more serious news anchors report on his return to the spotlight, we see small headlines about a corrupt president flash across the news ticker at the very bottom of the screen. The news of Moretti’s return is seen as so shocking, so exciting and so important to the culture it trumps any and every other headline regardless of what else is going on in the world. 

While at first this seems like a hyperbolic take on celebrity culture, as an audience member you begin to feel a strange sense of familiarity. This lingering thought is deepened further and further throughout the film. The world of Opus seems too absurd to see any truth in, but it slowly unveils itself to be closer to reality than we realize. It points out the ways in which we as a society have become desensitized to news of celebrities being cast to the forefront of cultural importance.  

Celebrity news, whether it be gossip blogs or profound think pieces, inherently grabs people’s attention. Politics are at their most divisive and the current state of America is so desperately bleak that people actively opt out of being involved in important, necessary and difficult conversations. Talking about celebrities, on the other hand, is easy. It comes at no cost and the repercussions of giving a “hot take” on topics in this arena aren’t as dire. It is a strange common connector amongst a divided country. 

Ariel is smart and understands this deeply. She’s specifically chosen celebrities to write about because she knows they are the keys to getting eyes on her work. However, she doesn’t pick this topic as a cheap shot at clicks but rather as a gateway into being a part of cultural conversations, in which everyone has a vested interest. 

She acknowledges that in today’s media landscape, everyone has a take, an opinion but most importantly everyone listens when someone else’s take is constructed well enough. Because she so desperately wants to be heard, she’s willing to put herself through this strange album release party that is growing exponentially more eerie for the chance to tell a story she knows people will listen to. 

While Opus on the surface is a critic of celebrity culture and our obsession with it, there is a very clear call out of journalists, and journalists who cover it as well. Ariel, because she sees this story as a stepping stone to notoriety, is willing to participate in this album release party to be near a subject worthy of writing about. In many ways, she is complicit, as we as a society all are, in furthering the influence and power celebrities hold in our culture. Green, a former GQ editor himself, seems to say no one is devoid of blame in this system, no matter what your intent might be. It’s not to say this news is not important, but rather the power we give to celebrities must be done so with caution and critical thinking abilities. 

Mark Anthony Green’s debut is a quick-paced thriller that draws you in with its first breath. Ayo Edebiri gives a pitch-perfect performance portraying the green journalist as someone who’s equally entranced and horrified by her subject, as John Malkovich serves as a cult leader who’s believably worthy of devotion. It’s a shame their characters are the only ones truly allowed to be explored within the time frame of the story, as their co-stars, like Murray Bartlett and Juliette Lewis, are just as mesmerizing when given ample material to work with.

The nostalgia that the sheer mention of Moretti’s name evokes in every character in the film (besides Ariel) perfectly encapsulates the way we can allow our fascination with celebrity to overstep all relevant logic. The missteps of his past, the gray area his actions lie in and the utter ridiculousness of his stories are looked over in favor of the moments in these characters’ lives that were underscored by his music. While entertaining, Opus is also a warning to a culture that may already be too far gone. It’s a sharp, gory and thoughtful criticism of a celebrity-obsessed culture that unfortunately seems to be more relevant by the day.   

Opus will be released in US theatres on March 14, 2025 and in UK & Irish cinemas on March 28.