Opus: 'charismatic' Ayo Edebiri can't rescue 'empty' cult horror

Ayo Edebiri is on typically "charismatic form" in this horror-inflected celebrity satire, said Kevin Maher in The Times, but alas, she cannot rescue this "empty non-story". Edebiri, best known for "The Bear", plays Ariel, a young journalist working at "a glamorous and wildly successful music magazine" of a sort that hasn't existed in decades.

For reasons that are unclear, she is invited with her boss (Murray Bartlett from "The White Lotus") and various VIPs to a "desert-based listening party" where they will be the first people to hear a new album by Moretti (John Malkovich), a pop megastar who has not been heard of since the 1990s. However, at the compound, she senses something is off; he lives among followers who call themselves "Levellists", and she realises that his real plans do not involve music.

This plot – "unwitting protagonist visits a cult-like retreat, only to discover satirically sinister intentions" – is "well-trodden", said John Nugent in Empire. Still, the film is quite fun. In particular, it is a treat to see Malkovich deliver the pretentious, bejewelled Moretti's lines in his "uniquely theatrical diction" and perform songs by Nile Rodgers.

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Director Mark Anthony Green, a former GQ writer, is good at creating atmosphere, said Ben Kenigsberg in The New York Times. He even "shows off the occasional inspired formal touch", notably a brawl taking place behind a closed door that is heard but not seen by the audience. Yet the precise target of the satire is never clear, and the film "bets far too much" on its dramatic twists. Green wants to "say something trenchant about fame while cementing his reputation as a sleek new horror auteur". Unfortunately, he has managed neither.