At first hilarious with Malkovich as pop icon/celeb, Alfred Moretti, and Ayo Edebiri as Ariel, an ambitious journalist with big dreams of success. Ariel's character is pivotal as she becomes entangled in Moretti's world, leading to a significant reveal in the narrative.
Opus brings viewers into the contemporary world of capitalistic influencers and reality TV stars with cult-like followings. The movie's themes of influence and wealth in the digital age are not just entertaining, but also thought-provoking and highly relevant to our current society.
While everyone around Moretti gets sucked into his vacuous void of privilege, a world of superficiality and self-indulgence, luxuriating in their self-entitlement, the movie highlights the societal issue of unchecked privilege and its consequences. But don't worry, it eventually all goes tits up in very horrific ways.
After the launch of her best-selling book about her time on Moretti's compound, Ariel comes to discover how her book, which initially set out to expose the truth, ended up glorifying the very things it criticized, leading to Ariel's profound realization about her own complicity.