Minor spoilers below.
In the new A24 film Opus, John Malkovich plays a legendary pop star. He’s the kind of artist with a theatrical flair, who wears platform boots to dinner, robotic armor for an at-home performance, and a white cape at the piano. He lives in a secluded estate and has millions of diehard fans. In the film, he goes by the name of Moretti (that’s his surname; his first name is Alfred). His image and celebrity bring to mind real-life icons like Elvis, Prince, David Bowie, Michael Jackson, Madonna, and even Beyoncé. But, who really inspired the character?
It’s an interesting question considering director Mark Anthony Green, who makes his feature debut with Opus, spent years as a journalist and editor for GQ prior to filmmaking. He has interacted with stars like this, up close but also at a distance. Moretti, however, isn’t inspired by one specific figure in pop culture. Instead, Green was inspired by how we treat figures like Moretti.
“A lot of people want me to say, ‘I was interviewing this person when this thing happened, and that inspired this film.’ But Opus is really an extremely fun cautionary tale about tribalism,” Green told The Hollywood Reporter.
“I know tribalism is not the most fun subject, so I chose pop music because it’s so enjoyable and infectious,” he continued. “I also chose to craft the film like a pop record, even in the way that it’s paced and to let it build in a certain way. Pop music felt like a fun way into this interrogation of tribalism, which is a global phenomenon and a pandemic that stretches far beyond art and entertainment. It’s tough to find an arena where there isn’t tribalism seeped into it.”
The themes of tribalism and obsession are all over Opus. The film revolves around Moretti staging a surprising comeback after disappearing for 30 years. Ahead of his resurgence, he invites a select group of media and industry folk to his private estate for an exclusive listening of what he calls his greatest album yet. His guests include a tabloid journalist, an influencer, a firebrand podcaster, the editor-in-chief of a music magazine, and one of his staff writers, Ariel, played by Ayo Edebiri. As they settle into Moretti’s remote residence in the desert, they find him living among a strange community of his acolytes who call themselves Levelists. With their matching clothes and strange servitude to Moretti, everything about the Levelists screams cult. But Ariel is the only one who seems to notice anything odd about this place. The rest of her fellow guests brush off any unusual occurrences simply as Moretti’s eccentricities. He’s an artistic genius, after all—he’s just a little weird. They believe this even though they’re all forced to get shaven by his staff, one of them gets shot with an arrow from Moretti’s bow, and the guests start mysteriously disappearing one by one. It’s not until things get bloody in a twisted third act that Ariel is proven to be right. Things get tragic, all because no one wanted to admit Moretti was actually doing something nefarious.
It’s not hard to see the parallels to real-life celebrity culture: The Levelists, who believe Moretti has been divinely chosen, are not unlike stans who blindly follow and fight for their favorite artists, believing they can do no wrong. The guests are an exaggerated version of the current industry—media, entertainment, or otherwise—and how its members enable bad behavior because no one wants to stand up to a star. And Moretti is a leader who knows what people would do for him and exploits his power. No one single person is in the wrong; everyone is participating in this stratified system. If anything, Opus is quite heavy-handed with this symbolism. The message is so obvious that it leaves you wishing the film dove deeper, and the suspense doesn’t quite pay off in the end. But nevertheless, it sheds light on a real issue that persists, even beyond Hollywood.
As Green told RogerEbert.com, “It’s not just in the entertainment industry. I won’t say names because it’s lame to say names, but there are glaring examples of people like that who come to mind that I could have never even dreamed of when I started writing this script.”
It’s easy to think of examples in politics, business, tech—the list goes on. As Opus’s vague conclusion suggests, this cycle of idolatry and abuse is never-ending. We must question not only who we put on a pedestal, but whether there should be a pedestal at all. And we shouldn’t need an OK film to remind us that.
