Pop Culture Happy Hour - Ayo Edebiri's New Movie Opus

Episode Date: March 17, 2025

In the new movie Opus, Ayo Edebiri plays a journalist who attends a press event at the compound of a reclusive pop star (John Malkovich) who'd been in hiding for decades. And then, things get weird and questions arise.To access bonus episodes and sponsor-free listening for Pop Culture Happy Hour, subscribe to Pop Culture Happy Hour+ at plus.npr.org/happy. Follow Pop Culture Happy Hour on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com/nprpopculture.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

In the twisty new movie Opus, a journalist attends a press event for a reclusive pop star who's been in hiding for decades. Then, things get weird. The film stars Iowa Debris, as well as John Malkovich, who even recorded a few pop songs for the occasion. I'm Stephen Thompson, and today we are talking about Opus on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. Joining me today is NPR music reporter Sidney Madden. Hey, Sydney. Hey, Stephen. Also with us is NPR Culture Desk reporter, Isabella Gomez.

Sarmiento. Hey, Isabella. Howdy. It is a pleasure to have you both. So Opus stars Iowa Debrie as a journalist named Ariel who works at a GQ-style magazine. After toiling for years in hopes of getting her shot, she receives an invitation to attend a very exclusive press event for a pop star named Alfred Moretti, he's played by John Malkovich. Moretti is presented in the film as a massively beloved genius whose disappearance has become the stuff of legend. And when the small gaggle of journalists arrives at his compound, it plays out like a fantasy. They have minders who tend to their every need. They're given up close and personal access to Moretti himself, who holds court in eccentric fashion

and gives them occasional glimpses of his first album in 27 years. Then, questions arise. What's the deal with this weird compound and the people who work there? What happened to that one guy who was just here a minute ago? And why did Moretti choose these journalists, including Ariel to whom he has no connection. Opus is in theaters now. Sydney Madden, I'm going to start with you.

What did you think of opus? Let me just start by saying I had really high hopes and really high expectations for this film. I think the casting is amazing. IOWAD debris is a shining star, in my opinion. John Malkovich is a goat. Juliette Lewis is one of my favorite chameleons. And Mark Anthony Green, who is the writer

and first-time director of this. this film. He is a former music fashion and culture journalist himself, having spent many years at GQ. And he's been privy to these exclusive events, gotten exclusive interviews in the past. So I was like, okay, this is going to be infused with some lived experience. And it's going to be a mirror to all the slimy power dynamics that come with celebrity proximity. But ultimately, Opus asked a lot of questions that it doesn't end up answering, and that mirror just becomes way too foggy and smudged by some resting laurels and reinforcement of the very thing it aims to call out. What do you mean by reinforcing what it intends to call out? Well, I think we've gotten a lot of

movies in the last few years that are indictments of power dynamics and cult of personality, cult of celebrity. I mean, blink twice, for one. I mean, it is a director. reflection of that. Exactly. Whether you're going to a billionaire's private island and blink twice, or you're going to an exclusive restaurant in the menu, or you're getting on this wacky mega yacht and triangle of sadness, there's always this creepy, festering itch in the back of your neck that asks you as the viewer, what would you do to get closer to this starshine, to get closer to the celebrity? As you're watching these people make these decisions and let their guards down just for some access and from some intimacy with these really powerful people, really famous people.

But more often than not, when our protagonists get in those situations and they see how slimy and smarmy it gets, rather than wanting to change their trajectory or back away, they do something that shifts the power dynamic that sometimes reinforces them as a celebrity themselves, which I think is, was a great sense. up in Opus of how Ariel Ecton wanted to interview celebrities who she says are inherently fascinating and she wanted to get so good at that that she herself becomes a celebrity. And it's her boo-thing, I want to say, in the beginning of the movie who says, you can't really do that because your opinions are so mid because your life is so average. You know, you have so much want and so much,

you know, dogged gut and ideas, but you have no lived experience to fill it with. So then, she goes on this trip, she gets a lot of lived experience. We're going to just say trauma in large fashion. And that's what she's able to use to become somewhat of a celebrity herself, rather than indict the horrible notion and our obsession with celebrity overall. Okay. How about you, Isabella? What did you think of the film?

I agree with Sydney. I'm always excited about pieces of media that raise questions with how celebrity-pilled we are and our obsession with clout and exclusivity and stand culture, I think it's like one of the most fascinating topics to me. And I think the movie set up the premise well. I think the execution, I think it didn't point enough fingers to me towards like the audience and towards the stands

and what responsibility we hold. That's kind of how I felt. I felt like it was a film that was more trying to analyze the pop figure himself. And I think to me what would have been more, interesting is if it was a film that was more occupied with, why are we so fascinated with these people? And what does that say about us? So I guess that's kind of more what I was hoping to get from it. Yeah, I had somewhat of the same reaction. I think it ultimately does a nice job of building this world and setting up this story. I think the part of the film that is like

depicting what press junkets are like, the part of the film that is depicting what this scurry for access is like and what it is like to be a journalist where you're coming in and like people are kind of trying to cater to you, but it's in hopes that you'll cater to them. I think the film gets that part really pretty right. Obviously, it's an elevated kind of extreme version of that. I've certainly never been flown on a private jet to some weird compound, but I felt like it seemed to basically get the language of celebrity journalism more or less right. I agree with Sydney that it doesn't necessarily come to a particularly satisfying conclusion and for me where it falls down, even though they got Nile Rogers and the Dream to write these

original songs for this film. It's actually really important to this film that you get a feel for who this guy is and what he's about. The film takes great pains to establish that he is this massive reclusive icon, that he is a household name, that he is somebody where everybody loves and remembers his song. That he spans generation. And then the song that we are presented with as the great pearls of his genius is a song called Dina Simone. And it's Dina comma Simone. Let's hear a little bit of it.

I spent my curve's on her giant men, man. Simone. Hold me, baby. Hold me tired. I spent days trying to conjure up, like, what song does this kind of remind me of? And how would that, like, affect my picture of whom already is? And I realize the song it kind of reminds me of is How Bizar by OMC. Oh.

Do you remember? Do you remember? How bizarre? How bizarre. And I'm just imagining this alternate universe where OMC became like the Rosetta Stone of pop music, where everybody is just hanging on the words of OMC. For me, that created this massive disconnect where I'm watching this pop star who we're told over and over and over again is just the voice of multiple generations. And then the music is so flimsy. Yeah, that's a good point you bring up because even though this is a movie about visiting a recluse to hear this iconic class type album,

and it's even set up that way, they dress them to go to the listening event of the album. The music itself, it does feel a little Prince Bowie chat GBT-esque. And it's not a music movie. That's what's so funny about it, too. I mean, it's like the music doesn't even matter because he's just ballooned to be this figure that we're all told. And we all know that we are to respect and revere. But the actual, like, sauce itself is missing a couple ingredients there. It's funny.

We, Isabella and I even went to go see this at a screening. And Mark Anthony Green was there and he was teeing it up. And he said he wanted the movie itself to be seen. and feel like an album, but there are certain parts of it, like the actual music, that I feel could be skippable. Like, there are certain movements that could have benefited from a little more bass and some that could have just been taken out of the sequence altogether. Yeah, I also feel like just in terms of volume, like, I was trying to think of other movies where they've created these fictional artists and fictional soundtracks to really, like, immerse you in the cult of the celebrity or really immerse you in the sound of that fictional figure. And like I was thinking of like Josie and the Pussycats or like Juliet Naked. And I'm like for a movie about music, it just didn't have that much music.

Yeah. Like I didn't really feel immersed in it. And then the sequences of people listening to the music, it just wasn't really landing. Like I was just kind of like question mark, question mark, is this supposed to be weird on purpose? Or is this supposed to be good and I'm not getting it? It was like a really weird experience. But I think that speaks to the overall. group think that comes from it. It's like, yeah, we're all supposed to love him. So we're all

supposed to just gush over this music. And even going through some scenes where you can clearly tell we're in a, we're in a cult setting, like passing the bread around to everybody. In a post-COVID world, I'm not biting a piece of bread that 30 other people before me bit. Oh, it's one role. It comes from Moretti and Moretti took the first bite. So any proximity to that celebrity is going to like absolutely suspend your disbelief or suspend your normal boundaries in your normal notions of what is allowed and what you will allow of yourself. And I think that extends to the music. We could get into a whole bunch of things that just point blank don't make sense about this movie. He takes Ariel to a hut and talks about the artistic practice of shucking oysters to get

pearls. First of all, y'all are supposed to be in Utah. This is a landlock state. How do you have so many oysters? There was a lot of seafood in this movie that just did not make sense. Why are there Voodoo dolls there? That's what I mean about a lot of moments that you're like, you're just in it and you're in the throes of it. So you're absolutely going to do everything to go along with the group. And I mean, that's how group think evolves into things like cults. It's interesting that you bring that up, Sydney, because to me it felt like the film sprinkled in very flattened depictions of cult. Exactly.

Right? Like, I didn't quite understand the religion aspect, and I think it could have been interesting, but I think it was a very stereotypical and flattened exhibition of what group think or of what, like, a quote-unquote cult looks like. And I don't think it did any of the work of actually explaining why people were there or what the motivations were, other than like we love Moretti. But that was a little too simple for me. And I think it ties back to one of my central issues with the film was I didn't necessarily feel like the film had a sure grip. on what is Ariel's perspective on all this? And I think in a way, it's a more interesting film if she comes in as a little bit more of a skeptic than she is. She's certainly, like, unnerved by some of this stuff,

maybe because in part because she's younger, she hasn't been in the industry as long. It's kind of presented. Like, she has questions that the other journalists who are a little more seasoned are just kind of go along with it because it's like, it's Moretti. He's a loopy guy.

What are you going to do? But, like, the fact that she seems odd by his music, that she keeps kind of presenting like, the music is brilliant, the music is whatever. And I think it's a more interesting film if she's able to step back as a little more of a skeptic and maybe a little more of an audience surrogate than she is. It becomes a little unclear where she's coming from. So by the time you get to the conclusion that is sort of wrapping some of these things up, it feels a little unsatisfying. Absolutely. I think she tries to do that at some turns, but ultimately she does want to be going back to what her aim was at the beginning of the film.

She wants to become a celebrity as this amazing culture critic. And it goes back to that push and pull of wanting to be close to the starshine. And we're not going to do this dance of separating the art from the artist and having this conversation. Like Ariel, even though she does want to ebb and flow into that, ultimately she's like, no, okay, this is not a joke anymore. It just, it obscures from that conversation. Like, it's about to have that conversation and then it totally changes trajectories. Yeah. I mean, I think the flip side of that, too, like even at the beginning when she's talking about her motivations,

it doesn't seem like she actually establishes what she cares about or what she's passionate about other than getting bylines and other than like ascending the ladder so she can do meaningful work. I feel like we don't get a sense of what she takes meaning in. And that's part of the problem with her perspective throughout the film. because it just goes back and forth like Stephen was saying in terms of being like she loves the music. She's also kind of the only voice of reason here. But I feel like her motivations also aren't completely well developed enough to understand what she's trying to get out of being here. And I guess the point of that is maybe that she doesn't even know that herself. And at the end, she's just as allured by the fame and by the celebrity of it all as everybody else is.

But I think the character could have just been a little bit sharper in that regard. Yeah, I agree with that completely. And I think it's interesting. This particular subgenre is so tricky to pull off. And by subgenre, I'm sort of referring to what I would call Sharmelon core, you know, which is kind of a twisty thriller where the central mystery is what's going on. And there's some kind of creative DNA here between this movie. I think it's a more successful movie. But there's some shared DNA with Trap, the very weird and misbegotten Am Night Shyamelon movie.

from last year, which is also built around. That has like three different endings. And a fake pop star. I guess my question is sort of, if you're going in for a silly M-night Sharmelon type, twisty movie, did it work for you on that level? Because I think it kind of worked for me. Yeah, it's entertaining and it's engaging. So on that level, yes, like, I was hooked.

I was like, where is this going to go? How is this going to end up? I think I just went into it expecting it to answer much bigger questions than it did. But if you're approaching it from that perspective, it was fun. I had a good time. Yeah, I mean, I think there's really solid dialogue in it. The cinematography is really great. There's a lot of moments where a turn just does make you jump and you think Ariel is actually done for.

And you do root for the protagonist. And yeah, it is a fun watch. But I agree with Isabella. I feel like seeing who was on the arsenal, seeing who's on the bill for this, and knowing that the writer and director comes from the world of pop culture criticism. And let's face it, the amount of erosion that's happening in that space right now, I thought it would have had more juicy and timely social commentary baked in there. But if you're just looking to have a good time, it's a good time.

I think it feels like an intriguing first film. Yes, definitely. All right. Well, we want to know what you think. about opus, find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCH and on letterboxed at letterboxed.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. That brings us to the end of our show, Sidney Madden, Isabella Gomez Sarmiento. Thanks so much for being here. Thank you. Thank you. And just a reminder that signing up for Pop Culture Happy Hour Plus is a great way to support our show and public radio and you get to listen to all of our episodes sponsor-free. So please go find

out more at plus.npr.org slash happy hour or visit the link in our show notes. This episode was produced by Liz Metzker and Hufzafathema and edited by Mike Katzif. Our supervising producer is Jessica Reedy and Hello Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Stephen Thompson and we will see you all tomorrow.