The best thing about Opus is its casting. As soon as I heard “A24 horror movie starring Ayo Edebiri,” I was on board before the trailer even finished.
And it delivers on the promise of “A24 horror movie” just fine. It’s got an overall message that lands well enough, although it lands with a feeling of “okay, I get it,” instead of being as stunning and impactful as it was probably meant to. That’s true of the rest of the movie as well. It all works in context, but nothing punches through as an image or a moment that demands to be vividly remembered.
Now that I’ve got an Apple Watch, it means that I watch everything with a heart monitor attached, and I can tell that Opus was suspenseful because it was buzzing about elevated heart rate every few minutes. It’s a testament to the maturity and confidence of the filmmaking that so many of the horror movie moments are suggested rather than shown.
But the perfect casting throughout is really what stands out. The protagonist is so in line with Ayo Edebiri’s public persona that I wouldn’t be at all surprised to learn that it was written specifically for her.1Especially if you noticed that the character’s initials are the same as the actress’s. Like I didn’t notice for two days. She has to be grounded enough not to fall for all the trappings of fame, but still enough of a nerd to find famous people fascinating. She’s got to read as driven, ambitious, and under-appreciated, capable of far more than she’s allowed to do. The overall message only works if she’s a superstar in waiting. And she’s got to be movie-star beautiful, but it’s something that she can put on and take off; it’s not her identity.
(Is it too obvious that I’ve got a crush on Ayo Edebiri? Even if she is a nepo baby).
John Malkovich is, obviously, excellent at being a menacing and unsettling cult leader, as well as seeming like the kind of actor who’d love the chance to play an aging glam rocker. Murray Bartlett is great at being unctuous and self-absorbed but mostly sympathetic. Juliette Lewis is Juliette Lewising the hell out of things.
Even with the smaller parts (in terms of overall screen time), it becomes clear by the end that they were played by the perfect person, the only one who could immediately read as exactly the role they’re playing. This guy looks like mostly-silent, creepy henchman but can also read as a basically normal guy who’d become a fanatic. This woman is a bad guy but is somehow still trustworthy. And so on.
I was excited to see Amber Midthunder’s name in the opening credits, because I felt like she’d proven her star power with Prey and was going to get the chance to show her range. So I was initially disappointed that it seemed like Opus had wasted her for a thankless part. But put in context of the rest of the casting, though, I think they needed exactly what she brought to the part. Even without speaking, she gives off a sense of intensity and makes it immediately clear that she could mess you up without breaking a sweat.
In fact, there seemed to be an interesting age divide across the cast. For the most part, the older actors seemed to be capital-A Acting, while the younger ones were more grounded and naturalistic. I interpreted this as subtle reinforcement of the idea that younger generations would be savvy enough to see through the bullshit, while the older characters had been pursuing fame for so long that they’d stopped second-guessing it. They all speak as if they’d seen it all, but they were the most eager to get swept up in it, and even see it as a reward.
Nile Rodgers and The-Dream are credited for the music in Opus and also as executive producers, although I couldn’t tell if that were just the featured songs, or the overall score. The score is excellent, driving home the unsettling feeling of a creepy cult. But for the songs, it feels like another case of choosing exactly the right people. They have to come across as being brilliant enough to inspire rabid fanaticism. While I didn’t fall in love with them as much as the characters seemed to, the moments when the movie turned itself over to showcasing the music seemed the closest to punching through and becoming unforgettable.