"O’Dessa" Hits Some Musical High Notes & A Few Low Ones
Wherein a hopelessly romantic farm girl turned rockabilly crooner saves humanity (well, kinda)
Disclaimer: Dystopian country western, bluegrass rock operas are not my thing. I like any of these music genres on their own. However strung together in a tonally uneven plot, a little less so. That said, there’s merit to O’Dessa, [Trailer] the latest vehicle by writer-director Geremy Jasper (Patti CakeS) whose cyberpunk neon lit world vibrates and moves fluidly against a backdrop of lively sound played from vintage steel guitars.
The film’s cinematic style oozes with the retrofuturism of an 80s video and a sci-fi dystopia found in The Fifth Element or Brave New World but then greets us with an ill-timed and placed modern-day reimagining of a Lenny Kravitz meets Alison Krauss rockabilly opera. The latter smacks of Emilia Perez, in its musica interrupptus tendencies but is arguably less controversial, and with a playlist that’s worth a listen to while sober.
Side Note: The cinematic tendency of films these days to blend and mesh as many film and musical genres into one film renders its identity and cadence chaotic, even if the intent is to show fluidity. I can appreciate that this is a 21st Century film style but also that it’s in its early stages of maturity, not quite fully formed or fleshed out. In contrast, in Picasso’s cubist painting masterpiece below, in which a myriad of shapes and forms blend and connect seamlessly to animate the identifable girl with a mandolin, we can readily realize its forms, see its layers, and experience its emotional resonance.
Back to O’Dessa (No, Not That One, THE ONE)
The bright moments offered by music and the spawning of love between the film’s leads, Euri (Kelvin Harrison Jr.) and O’Dessa (Sadie Sink), contrast greatly with the bleak scenes of junkyards, downtrodden and destitute people, and evil overlords.
The titular O’Dessa is played by Sadie Sink, also known from her breakout role as Max (or MadMax) in Stranger Things. Here she plays an orphan farm girl and talented singer-songwriter who also happens to be the fated protagonist (known as “The One”) who can save the world from Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett of The White Lotus and The Last of Us), a scheming scumbag who has brainwashed the masses into doing his bidding. Plutonovich’s storyline as a villain who weaponizes and employs an endless cycle of reality TV, gauntlet style competition games, and a soma-type drug to keep everyone in a stuporous state felt very played out onscreen by at least ten years, but hey, it was a reason to hate the guy anyways.
Actually, this line alone was enough to solidify this man’s pure evil in the eyes of a romance enthusiast and writer like myself, and coincidentally made me like this movie just a little more:
Plutonivich (villain): “Is there anything more hopeless than a hopeless romantic?”
Moving On
According to this film’s lore, O'Dessa is a rambler, someone who goes from town to town singing and lifting spirits. She and her “pick of destiny” are the real thing, too, and not just a Tenacious D reference, because it’s under these auspices, that she meets her love interest, the sexually fluid, Euri who exudes that Lenny Kravitz rocker style, but with a definitive Euphoria upgrade. He falls in love with O’Dessa in the timespan of one song sung by her, quite literally, and she with him. It’s a good thing too, because this movie moves fast. Theirs is a beautiful, possibly queer, and very much Romeo & Juliet tragic, forbidden romance, mostly because Euri is owned by external forces, like Neon (Regina King) and unable to freely love (or live).
Warning: Spoilers for film’s ending below.
Once O’Dessa fully realizes her power, she literally burns down Plutonvich’s island, sacrificing herself and Euri, who had already been facially disfigured by then. This fitting ending may have also served as the finale in the thinly veiled Epstein Island-based psychological thriller Blink Twice. I especially admired that O’Dessa’s strength wasn’t supernatural but instead stemmed from her ability to show genuine compassion, foster unity through her words, and convey love powerfully through her music.
Final Words
It is hard for me to criticize a film in which a hopeless romantic with a guitar saves the world. [See my review of A Complete Unknown as proof] Although this film has execution flaws, the quality of the music, the intention, the lead's acting, and the message make it worth rooting for. Sadie Sink, in her first really big film role post-The Whale, is proving herself a talented singer, actor combo, and I’m excited to see what’s next for her.
O'Dessa is scheduled to be released by Searchlight Pictures through Hulu on March 20, 2025.
Sounds interesting. Always fun when a young woman save the world, guitar in hand. 👏
Sounds like abstract art, where instead of colours, the genres are thrown into the air and whatever lands where is what makes the story.