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This review was originally published on January 28, 2025, out of the Sundance Film Festival.
We are recirculating it now timed toOpuss theatrical release.
Its a rather 21st-century human condition.
Who needs haunted houses when were all surrounded by rich, strange predators?
Hes played by the great John Malkovich, who actually sings several of the songs featured in the picture.
Its frankly shocking that nobody has asked him to play a pop star until now.
Sure enough, hes the best thing inOpus, seductive and slithery and pathetic and patronizing all at once.
One even awkwardly jogs behind Ariel when she goes out for a morning run.
Obviously, things arent going to end well, but they sure do take their time getting there.
Theyre pitched at the same level as Malkovichs performance: self-aware, silly, but involving.
Unfortunately, thats pretty much allOpushas going for it.
When the genre histrionics arrive inOpus, they do so in almost insultingly cursory fashion.
But she does sometimes seem as if she should be in another movie entirely.
Director Mark Anthony Green occasionally delivers some impressive imagery, and he can certainly put together a montage.
But he seems a lot less interested in the actual drama hes concocted than in building up Morettis eccentricities.
And honestly, who can fully blame him?
He probably recognizes what he has captured with Malkovich.
I could have watched hours more of the actors antics.
IfOpushad just been a three-hour music video, we might have had something.
