Unraveling ‘Opus’: The Shocking Truth Behind Moretti’s Dark Motive!

Mark Anthony Green’s and A24’s Opus, starring Ayo Edebiri and John Malkovich, was released in theaters this past weekend. The psychological thriller follows a journalist who travels to the home of an elusive pop icon years after his disappearance, and things soon take a dark turn.

Following a similar structure to recent popular horror films like Get Out, Blink Twice, and Midsommar, Opus allows us to discover an unseemly set of circumstances through the eyes of an unsuspecting protagonist, and there is a lot of information sprinkled throughout that hints at the film’s ultimate themes critiquing celebrity and ego. What happens in Opus, and how does it all contribute to the end?

Ariel Wants It All

Ariel Ecton (Edebiri) is a young journalist working at a music publication. She is frustrated that after three years on the job, Ariel has still not been given the opportunity to write a real story, often dismissed by her boss, Stan (Murray Bartlett). One day, the entire office and world are sent into a tizzy when it is announced that ’90s mega-pop star Alfred Moretti (Malkovich). Moretti, who the film canonically says has more hits than Michael Jackson, is making a long-awaited return and releasing a new album, “Caesar’s Request.”

Moretti sends out elaborate invitations to an exclusive listening party for the album to six guests: talk show host Clara (Juliette Lewis), influencer Emily (Stephanie Suganami), member of the press Bianca (Melissa Chambers), controversial radio personality Bill Lotto (Mark Sivertsen), and Stan and, unexpectedly, Ariel. The party all board a bus, and it takes them to Moretti’s Utah compound, where they will spend the weekend at the listening party.

The Meditations of Level

Upon their arrival, they are greeted by hundreds of people all wearing the same color and following a doctrine called “The Meditations of Level.” Calling themselves “Levelists”, the members of this community work and live humbly while Moretti adorns a lavish lifestyle. Each of the guests is given a full itinerary for the weekend and assigned a personal “concierge,” a Levelist, who will attend to them (and watch them) at all times. The guests also have to forfeit their phones for the duration of the weekend. It becomes immediately apparent to Ariel that she has

, but the other guests are excited to enjoy their “once in a lifetime” weekend. Initially assigned by Stan only to help note take information on Moretti’s new album. Ariel sees this as her opportunity to finally conduct some investigative journalism.

It does not take long for the Levelists to make their first kill, attacking Bill while he is getting a massage. When the other guests inquire about Bill’s whereabouts, the Levelists simply say he will catch up later. Ariel begins to explore the compound, relentlessly followed by her concierge, Belle. Ariel happens upon Moretti sunbathing and takes the opportunity to pick his brain about Levelism and the compound. He takes her to see a hut where Levelists shuck oysters for hours on end in pursuit of finding one pearl, as Levelists only wear necklaces strung from real pearls. Next on the itinerary are makeovers for the guests before Moretti gives a private concert, complete with new hairstyles and outfits. It goes a little too far when the Levelists insist on shaving the guests’ pubic hair, causing Ariel to feel a serious sense of alarm.

The Show Must Go On

Emily the influencer suddenly erupts into a coughing fit and has to be escorted out. Ariel expresses her suspicions to Stan and the others, but he derides her, even after being suspiciously shot through the shoulder with an arrow. When Ariel finds a shed filled with dead animals (and Bill’s dead body, which Ariel does not notice) and all of their destroyed phones, she informs Moretti and the Levelists that she would like to leave immediately. Moretti says that the bus will not be back for a while, but Ariel is welcome to watch the puppet show that the children have prepared while she waits for it to return. Ariel reluctantly agrees.

The puppet show turns out to be an incredibly eerie telling of the story of Billie Holiday, in which the press (a group of unsightly rat puppets) harass her until she breaks. Suddenly, Ariel begins to feel the beanbag chair underneath her move. Turns out, Emily has been inside it all along, suffering a horrible chemical reaction all along that is causing her to swell and suffocate to death. After Moretti gives an impassioned monologue about his motive and the meaning behind the name “Caesar’s Request,” the guests try to fight back but the Levelists manage to stab Bianca and Stan to death.

Ariel manages to escape long enough to find a mass supply of Cyanide and Champagne, but then she is found and knocked unconscious by Belle. When she awakes, she is tied to a chair alongside Clara. As everyone drinks the Cyanide Champagne, the same Levelist who earlier shaved Ariel grows sympathetic and sets her free. She flees to the gate, pursued by Belle,

How Does Opus End?

Two years later, Ariel has written a bestseller about the events that took place on the compound. Moretti is in prison for the murders of Stan, Bill, Bianca, Clara, and Emily, but the hundreds of Levelist bodies are still missing. Ariel recalls to the press the day that she returned with the police to the compound to arrest Moretti. Moretti sat at a grand piano, adorned in a white cape, and played a tune, fully expecting and indifferent to the police’s arrival. At his feet lay the five corpses of the guests he murdered.

It Was All Part of the Plan

One day, Ariel receives a phone call out of the blue from Moretti’s publicist (Tony Hale). Moretti would like to do an interview, at last.

where he reveals that all the Levelists are, in fact, still alive but in hiding. They are spread out to disperse the Levelist message. Moretti thanks Ariel for writing her book, essentially free publicity for his ideology. He shares that he essentially believes that putting power in those with the greatest “left-brain” capabilities has failed society, and thus we should shift to putting the most “right-brained,” or creative people, in power. Moretti also discloses that Caesar’s Request, which he considers to be his magnum opus, has sold millions of copies despite the murders. Later, when Ariel is doing a TV interview for her book tour, she becomes uneasy when she notices that the interviewer is wearing a necklace with two pearls.

So, the first thing to highlight when unpacking Opus‘s ending is that it seems that Ariel was and still is a pawn in Moretti and the Levelists’ game. When Ariel asks Moretti, “Why me?” he says that she is a blank canvas, and she has not yet experienced career success. It is heavily implied that her escape, and the consequent writing of her book, was planned. The second crucial aspect, as with any murder mystery, of course, is motive. However, when it comes to matters of cults and mass murder, the answer tends to be much more nebulous and rooted in identity politics or religion

(for instance, the story of Jonestown, which seems to inspire Opus largely, has also inspired book-length texts).

Do We Worship Artists?

In the case of Opus, we should look at what the script reveals about the central tenets of Levelism. Earlier in the film, Moretti says that Levelists believe that God is in anyone when they achieve a moment of true artistic contribution. So, when Moretti writes an especially catchy bridge or salient lyric, at that moment, he is actually divine. By this logic, anyone can be a god, but not everyone will be a god in their lifetime.

Moretti clearly thinks himself more inclined to godliness than most, and he believes that his creation of Caesar’s Request is some sort of divine, universe-balancing artistic act. It is all rooted in ego, of course, but it is enforced by the active following he has accrued. Each of the guests he invites and ultimately murders, except Ariel, publicly criticized him in the past. Thus, his motive on a surface level is a vendetta inspired by ego.

Moretti’s motive on a deeper level is the belief that he has a responsibility to create art that will save the world and to purge the earth of those who do not understand his genius. In general, this all servesas an allegory for celebrity culture and extreme fan bases that idolize their favorite artists to a dangerous extent. There is so much that Moretti can get away with for the sheer fact that he has made music people enjoy, and by the time his guests realize they are actually in danger, it is far too late. Ariel herself gets her original wish, and the opportunity to create her magnum opus as well, but as she sits before a reporter who may be a Levelist in disguise at the end of the film, she wonders if the dissolution of her reality and safety were worth the fame.

Opus is playing in theaters everywhere now.

2025-03-18 01:39