Movie Night: Opus (2025)

“Opus” dissects the intersection of cults and celebrity worship through the lens of a reclusive pop star and those drawn into his orbit.

Opus (2025) is about cults, celebrities, and the cult of celebrity.

There is no unanimous consensus about who the world’s first celebrity was, although many people think the eccentric British poet Lord Byron is a contender. According to Professor Sharon Marcus’s 2019 article “On the 18th-Century Origins of Celebrity Worship,” celebrity culture as we know it kicked off as the world became more democratized and people had access to newspapers, which reported on the activities of the famous (and infamous).

The celebrity in Opus is global pop star Alfred Moretti (John Malkovich), who has been out of the public eye for three decades. With the internet acting as a modern newspaper, the news drops that Moretti is releasing a new album and inviting a handful of guests to an exclusive listening event.

The rapturous reaction to Moretti’s announcement shows that his fans have remained devoted to him despite his relative silence over the last 30 years.

The entire world is frenzied with excitement, eagerly awaiting the new album and (perhaps even more importantly) the re-emergence of the iconic superstar, who has a Michael Jackson/David Bowie-level mystique.

Ariel (Ayo Edebiri) is a young Black journalist living and working in New York City – and it’s worth noting that Opus’s writer and director Mark Anthony Green has worked at GQ for years, writing articles and profiling celebrities. There’s even a nod to his cover story with LeBron James in the film, as a magazine cover featuring the basketball star is featured prominently at Ariel’s office.

After being condescended to by Stan (Murray Bartlett), the older white male boss at her magazine job, Ariel laments her inability to write big stories for the magazine and proposes that she’ll find success if she can write about what celebrities are interested in, thus becoming somewhat of a celebrity herself.

Her view seems cynical, but she is most likely correct.

The cult of celebrity (especially in the U.S.) is alive and unwell – the internet has made everyone seem accessible. In a world where people track celebrity gossip as closely as they track global news, Ariel’s idea to connect with a celebrity isn’t a bad one.

Ariel’s wish comes true, sort of: She’s picked as one of the journalists to attend Moretti’s event. Stan, who was also picked, immediately cuts Ariel down, informing her that he’ll be writing the big feature on the musician; she’ll be the one quietly taking notes.

Ariel and Stan caravan to Moretti’s compound with a group of other media players (who are themselves celebrities on some level): Clara (Juliette Lewis), a talk show host; Bianca (Melissa Chambers), a well-known paparazzo; Emily (Stephanie Suganami), a young social media influencer; and Bill (Mark Sivertsen), a radio personality.

(The cast commits wholeheartedly to their roles in Opus, even as things at the compound become more absurd. Two standouts are the actors who portray two of Moretti’s most loyal devotees: Amber Midthunder as Belle and Tatanka Means as Najee. Both actors strike an unsettling balance between eerily silent, brainwashed servants and unconscionably violent soldiers.)

Almost immediately, Ariel clocks that Moretti’s compound – where his devotees wear matching blue jumpsuits and smile vacantly– seems more like a cult than anything else.

Opus’s backdrop is the serene desert landscape of Pojoaque, New Mexico, where it was filmed. It’s beautiful but beyond secluded; it’s isolated from other people and reality.

The journalists’ and devotees’ response to Moretti is unsettling.

Their emotional need to be around this god-like celebrity overwhelms their sense of pride and self-preservation. They allow themselves to be styled, shaved (!), and followed by the workers at the compound, all because they don’t want to go against Moretti’s wishes; they quickly become puppets in Moretti’s mysterious plan.

Green (who I’d imagine is no stranger to the cult of celebrity after being exposed to it from his years at GQ) skillfully rachets up Ariel’s unease as she resists embracing Moretti fully.

She is the lone holdout who doesn’t swallow everything she’s being told. Moretti himself knows what Ariel thinks of him and his fans; he sneaks up on her and corrects the spelling of “sycophants” in her notebook. But he seems more intrigued by her than worried that she sees through his act.

After several alarming disappearances, the film turns dark during a disturbing puppet show featuring an embattled Billie Holiday (voiced by Rosario Dawson) being harassed by rodent-like reporters. Holiday was an incredibly talented Black woman who was continually underestimated and mistreated, despite her fame. There is a clear parallel in Ariel’s character, who saw what everyone else was willfully blind to: They’re all trapped in Moretti’s cult.

Opus is a powerful, psychologically tense modern horror film that raises more questions than it answers: What is the true meaning of genius? What’s the difference between fandom and obsession? Who “deserves” to benefit from the ubiquitous culture of celebrity that has seeped into modern society?

And in a world full of parasocial relationships, where we can forego newspapers for the internet, and see celebrities alternating with friends in our social media feeds, what does reality even mean?