Opus (15)

Enigmatic pop star Alfred Moretti, known affectionately as the Wizard Of Wiggle, retreated from the public eye 27 years ago. His effusive agent, Soledad Yusef, heralds the surprise drop of an 18th studio album, Caesar's Request, with a listening party for honoured guests before the world basks in one of the great LPs of the modern era. Gift basket invitations are delivered to six people including poorly treated junior magazine writer Ariel Ecton.

LondonNet Film Review

Opus (15) Film Review from LondonNet

Music is a global religion and its gods and idols have been preaching to the converted for decades. Congregations answered the call when Elvis Presley’s swivelled his hips, The Beatles twisted and shouted, Elton John said farewell to his yellow brick road, Spice Girls defiantly zigazig ahed, Lady Gaga teetered on the edge of glory, Taylor Swift shook it off and Harry Styles served generous slices of his watermelon sugar. The cult of musical celebrity claims multiple victims in a tantalising thriller written and directed by first-time filmmaker Mark Anthony Green, which simmers with tightly coiled menace like Blink Twice and Get Out…

John Malkovich is deliciously cast as a flamboyant, platform-booted pop star, who returns to the public gaze to exploit the social media circus that has pitched its tent in the three decades since his self-imposed creative exile. He sinks his pearly whites into Green’s meaty script, which takes satirical swipes at facets of popular culture but draws disappointingly little blood, especially in a haphazard final stretch that should – like a great pop song – leave us on a rhapsodic high.

Guitarist Nile Rodgers and The-Dream provide a songbook of groovy original music including infectious dance floor filler Dina, Simone (replete with Malkovich’s seductive vocals), which has been released to promote the film. Art imitates life imitates art on an infinity loop of pitch-perfect branding.

Alfred Moretti (Malkovich), known affectionately as the Wizard Of Wiggle, retreated from the public eye 27 years ago with a Guinness World Record for the highest-grossing global tour in history and has remained a tantalising enigma. His effusive agent, Soledad Yusef (Tony Hale), heralds the surprise drop of an 18th studio album, Caesar’s Request, with a listening party for honoured guests before the world basks in one of the great LPs of the modern era.

Gift basket invitations are delivered to TV show host Clara Armstrong (Juliette Lewis), powerful influencer Emily Katz (Stephanie Suganami), podcaster and former rock star Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), veteran paparazza Bianca Tyson (Melissa Chambers), magazine editor Stan Sullivan (Murray Bartlett) and – curiously – his poorly treated junior writer, Ariel Ecton (Ayo Edebiri). The assembled throng travel to Moretti’s private compound in the Utah desert where they surrender mobile devices to protect “the authenticity of the experience” and are exposed to his cult-like doctrine.

Opus promises more than it ultimately delivers, but Green is a filmmaker with an intriguing, off-kilter vision, who isn’t afraid to get his hands messy in the slop of the human condition. Tension builds gradually, spiking with a deranged puppet show featuring the voice of Rosario Dawson. Edebiri’s sweet-natured scribe is one of few likeable characters in the escalating delirium but she feels underwritten, like a great verse missing a killer chorus.

– Jo Planter