How many more “rich celebrity and their sinister island retreat” satires can we stomach?
A few days ago, while cruising YouTube for new movie trailers—as I often do—I stumbled upon a new A24 film titled Opus. I hadn’t heard of it before and had no idea what it was about; all I knew was that it starred The Bear’s Ayo Edebiri. Intrigued, I clicked play and settled in. Two and a half minutes later, I found myself filled with an odd sense of déjà vu. Opus seemed to have all the right ingredients: an engaging premise, a striking visual style, and a stellar cast that included a gonzo John Malkovich, Prey’s Amber Midthunder, and The White Lotus’ Murray Bartlett. So, why did it feel like I’d seen it all before?
Well, for starters, here is the official synopsis: “A young writer is invited to the remote compound of a legendary pop star who mysteriously disappeared 30 years ago. Surrounded by the star’s cult of sycophants and intoxicated journalists, she finds herself in the middle of his twisted plan.”
OK, so here’s the setup: a young, “normie” protagonist—a clear audience stand-in—is invited to what seems like a glamorous, aspirational event hosted by an eccentric, wealthy celebrity. The event takes place in a mysterious, eerily remote location. Everyone the protagonist encounters is a wealthy oddball, behaving in bizarre and unsettling ways. Beneath the surface, there’s a sinister undertone that inevitably leads to a semi-scary reveal of what’s really going on. The moral of the story? Rich people, celebrities, and tech moguls are all awful, venal, and possibly murderous individuals who see ordinary people as nothing more than playthings.
Now, before you break out in a cold sweat because you’re beginning to worry that this article is a staunch defence of the mega-rich – trust me, it’s not. I think the wealth disparities in our modern capitalistic culture are abominable, and rich people are often as out of touch with reality as movies like Opus present them to be. I enjoy watching “Eat the Rich” satire as much as the next guy, and Succession is easily my favourite show of the last decade.
But here’s the thing: when so many movies peddle the tale of an uber-wealthy oddball inviting people to their private island/compound to do ominous, inappropriate and/or malevolent things, are we really making satire anymore? In the last few years alone, I can rhyme off a list of these movies: Blink Twice, The Menu, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, The Invitation, Don’t Worry Darling, Triangle of Sadness, Ready or Not, Get Out, Saltburn. Hell, Nine Perfect Strangers also pulled the same trick on TV.
Granted, not all of these films fall 100% neatly into the “rich weirdo invites normies to their sinister island retreat” category. However, they’re all similar in spirit, more or less. Some have more of a horror bent, and some are more comedic. Some are making racial or social commentary that is much more nuanced than “Aren’t rich people weird?” and one features the most delicious cheeseburger that’s ever been committed to film. I also like a lot of these movies, with The Menu and Get Out being particularly brilliant.
Still, I worry that my eye-rolling reaction to the Opus trailer may be a harbinger that the well is starting to run dry on this particular vein of cinematic satire. Failing that, perhaps its effectiveness has started to plateau.
So, has this brand of satire lost its cutting edge?
As Brass Eye’s Chris Morris once said, if satire lacks a true point of view, it comes across as “doing some kind of exotic display for the court, to be patted on the head by the court.”
Is that what is happening here? At this point, we know that the elite doesn’t care about us little people. We also know that tech/lifestyle figures come across as alienatingly aloof to most of us salt-of-the-earth types. So, if the only thing your movie is saying is, “Yeah, they probably also want to kill you in an exotic location” or “You’re just a pawn to be moved about life’s chessboard for their amusement,” are you saying anything truly provocative anymore?
In truth, that’s without even going down the rabbit hole of whether or not you can effectively convey an anti-capitalist message wrapped up within a product produced by a major corporation for profit. Perhaps the whole thing has become, as The Face’s Patrick Sproull put it, “a tote bag slogan era of anti-capitalism in culture, cutesy shorthand that’s now entirely representative of a watered down, inoffensive type of politics”.
Even if I set aside whether any of these movies can properly function as satire anymore, though, I can’t deny that they’re just not as appealing as they were even a year or two ago. It feels like Hollywood has done what it always does. The movie business seized upon something that once felt new and exciting – and ran it straight into the ground in double quick time.
Hell, at this point, it would be more surprising if a movie tech mogul invited someone to their palatial mansion on their private island and didn’t have any kind of nefarious ulterior motive – beyond bragging about their latest useless app or smartphone update, of course.
