UrsulaMS’s review published on Letterboxd:
I love films about craft. Whether they draw from the filmmaker’s personal experience as a creator (like Charlie Kaufman’s Adaptation), or examine a skill that he or she does not possess (like Agnès Varda’s Jane B. for Agnès V.), is secondary; the greatest movies about making art come from a place of curiosity, and curiosity can stem from pretty much anywhere. It’s this interest in the work itself that separates good films about craft from bad ones (like Alex Garland’s Civil War)—films that offer shallow interpretations of other disciplines, or misrepresent them entirely.
Written and directed by Mark Anthony Green, Opus is a film about craft with little understanding or interest in the crafts it depicts—these being journalism and pop music. Ayo Edebiri stars as Ariel, an undervalued journalist at a major music publication who receives an invitation to the remote Utah residence of aging pop icon Alfred Morretti (John Malkovitch), in order to preview his record alongside a small but distinguished group of fellow media professionals. Upon her arrival, it is immediately made clear that Morretti is running a cult from this secluded property, prompting Ariel to investigate. Hilarity ensues in a mostly by-the-numbers horror film with all the toothless didacticism of The Menu (2022) and Blink Twice (2024), and none of their stylistic flair.
