The big cult of dumb violence.
A review of Opus (2025) !!!SPOILERS!!!
Opus is another A24 product, and the debut film of Mark Anthony Green. It had its world premiere at this year Sundance, where it performed pretty badly, won no prizes and became a commercial flop (seven million $ while publishing this).
Why?
Well, It sucks.
SHORT RECAP
It all starts in NYC, with music journalist, Ariel Ecton. At this point, Ariel is just a struggling journalist (like most of them) willing to do anything to make her voice heard. Luckily for her international pop star, Alfred Moretti comes out of retirement to announce his new album, “Ceaser Request” (foreshadowing). Also, Moretti throws a private listening party for his new album, where he invites lots of people, including Ariel and a few other media people. They arrive, and for a pretty short time they enjoy themselves. Free massages, somewhat mediocre music, kids with no phones, great food . Just a bit of narcissism and crepiness from Moretti and his cult, but things that don’t seem that far out from a modern popstar (like Kanye). UNTIL *surprisingly* this whole function turns out to be a setup. Ariel and her friends we’re called there, just to learn about the Levelist (Moretti’s cult) and to see how much of an alpha genius guy hand his Moretti can be. Oh, and of course get brutally murdered. The movie now, turns for a bit into Shutter Island, or Get Out, or Midsommar or any other film with a similar story, where only the main character is sane, and the people around, call them being schizomode. After some bad failed attempts at escaping, Ariel is “helped” by one of the cult members, and finnaly GETS OUT.
Who could have guessed?
The epilogue, takes place 2 years after the whole incident. Ariel retires from her old journalism job, to write a book about her time with Moretti — named “Our time in the sand”, which becomes a bestseller. But SURPRISE, Moretti strikes again, he arranges a meetup at the prison where he is held and tells Ariel all of his Great Alfredi Masterplan™️. He’s going to transform the book into a manifesto for his cult? And even weirdly it works?
Opus tried to tackle this phenomenon of blind fans cult; people so obsessed with some popular figurehead that they would do anything just to gain their approval (Swifties). And that in the hands of the wrong entity, they can become a problem real fast (check out r/playboicarti). Opus also shows us how the outside world will most likely ignore them, until they become a real problem.
Just like our levilists.
THE PROBLEMs!
Moretti, is just….. an idiot.
His whole reason for leading this cult and making its own members do war crimes, is — advancing the human race? Levetism has nothing to be backed up by, no ideology, no views, no religion, no… nothing. Even the director said so in one of his many interviews:
You just got to make something provocative enough, for people to ask good questions and people smart people can go and figure that out.
While (IMO) he is somewhat right in what he said. A film has to set out a strong enough “spark”, something compelling enough that it gets the viewer excited to question the film, and that it can give them a solid base to engage with the story and start asking the right questions.
In our case, Opus has a very weak “spark”. The viewer doesn’t have much room to work here. The cult just blindly follows this bald fella and do whatever messed up stuff they are asked; only because he is a popstar that acts nonchalantly. Or how Moretti would describe it: “primitive man choose their leader, the same way animals choose their leader, by brute strength (…) but it went from strength to the left brain.”
Yeah….
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Every bad guy in history/fiction had an augmented reason to do it’s messed up thing.
DISCLAIMER
I AM NOT A FACIST, NAZIST, RACIST OR AN EXTREMIST.
- Funny mustache man terrorized half of the world because he believed that the Germans, especially the Aryan race was superior (while being infertile);
- His bald “friend”, Mussolini believed that the Italians were the most cultured and perfect race that could ever be;
- Julius Ceaser, (Alfredi icon) cared and believed so much for the Roman Empire that he went down by its hand;
- ISIS (no, not the band) claims that all the violence they commit is to show how Allah is the supreme God;
And the list could go on, probably forever…..
All of the men I mentioned had massive egos like Moretti, but they still had time to find a somewhat plausible motive for what they did.
Even films that Opus clearly inspires from have somewhat decent motives from the bad side perspectives (MidSommar, Get Out, The Menu, etc…).
Our bad guy here wants the human race to evolve though his cult; full of nonsense weird rituals and violence. And while he is right saying that violence leads to big changes in history, like the renaissance. Every violent period in history had a clear reason, backing it up.
The Levitism reasons is like if Terminator tried to achieve a deep arthouse meaning.
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OPUS, also suffers from the typical clichés of this type of film genre.
Starting with the fact that only the main character can use its brain and see that there’s clearly something wrong; Even when the others are served on a silver platter with clear reasons, they just choose to ignore them, and call the good guy a cuckoo.
Followed by the protagonist’s first failed escape attempt, that leads to the bad guy always being disappointed and offering to let them leave peacefully; with the always present excuse of why they can’t leave yet, that they have to remain just a for little longer. And of course, after they always accept without any protest, in that time something bad happens that leads to the climax.
(This is not really that much of cliché, it’s just a dumb trait that I see in similar movies, on screen). We can’t forget, the always dumb violent cult with its oh so charming leader. The type of leader that is always so smart and that seems so cool and down to earth, that he has its own aura (1000+ aura). And always, a few of the outsiders (only Ariel in our case) can truly see behind his mask and see the bad intensions. Oh, and he always has to break his calm and his reveal his secret plan (most likely in the climax).
All of this cliches combined made Opus… a shitter experience. Especially for the sensible A24 fans.
Also, this film is supposed to be a “suspense thriller/horror”(as the big man said himself).
I didn’t find it that horror or that suspenseful. And I am saying this as someone who found the FNAF movie scary. The only arguably horror and suspenseful parts are in Ariel’s first escape, when she finds the body of Bill. The rest of the film’s horror and suspenseful parts are made of disturbing acts of violence and weird things, that fails horribly and just comes off as disgusting. (take for example the horror of something like Inland Empire or even Apocalypse Now).
And even the ending. It’s just… goofy. How a book about murder and weird rituals, will give Levitism and Moretti a positive light. Hell, image if someone like P Diddy tried the same trick.
CONCLUSION
Opus thinks too highly of itself. It tries to achieve this deep arthouse film effect, of what if X happened and eat the rich mindset, but it doesn’t quite work that well; and in the end, makes the viewer leave the cinema confused.
Although it isn’t that bad. Yeah, it’s boring but I still liked some parts of it and found some really strong aspect from it. (especially the foreshadowing game, I LOVE IT) It had opportunities to be much worse and clichéic.
I still recommend that you watch it. This being Mark debut film, I am certainly watching out for his next creations.
