O’Dessa: Offers Up Style But Little Substance (Early Review)

Set in a post-apocalyptic future, O’Dessa is an original rock opera that follows O’Dessa (Sink), a farm girl who leaves home and sets off on an epic quest to recover a cherished family heirloom. Her journey would lead her to a strange and dangerous city where she meets her one true love Euri (Harrison Jr.) but after a series of events, she must put the power of destiny and song to the ultimate test to save Euri’s soul from the evil Plutonovich Bartlett). Filled to the brim with style, ambition, energy, noise, and originality unlike many films released as of late. But as impressive as it may be on a technical level, it is yet another case of style over substance and is messy as a whole.

Either way, one can’t help but admire the many big swings the film takes and writer/director Geremy Jasper’s unique vision. However, it is a shame that the actual narrative and script can’t quite match that ambition. Its dystopian world feels wholly original, as the level of world building on display is fascinating, setting the stage right from the opening act. While it won’t be for all audiences, this film has an undeniable style present throughout, and never once takes its foot off the gas to cater to anyone who isn’t already onboard. On the other hand, the music is one of the film’s biggest highlights. Heavily influenced by country music, it still find its own distinct sound, one that fits well with both the characters and scenes. Definitely not hurting its case is the group of talent performers the film assembled to perform its original songs and bring its musical set pieces to life. Meanwhile, in between musical sequences, the film offers up a cool synthy score.

In terms of performances, Sink delivers another strong performance as O’Dessa and is ultimately the main reason to watch this above all else. On top of that, he great guitar and singing skills take her performance to even greater heights. Harrison Jr. follows suit, while getting to showcase his impressive voice. Despite limited screen time, Bartlett is a lot of fun as he certainly understood the assignment. Finally, Regina Hall delivers the showiest performance and is the biggest standout as Neon Dion. In what was a completely different role than anything than what audiences have seen in her career, it was a nice change of pace to get to see her play a menacing but also slightly campy villain.

In the end, where the film falls flat is its storytelling and writing. In spite of getting off to a promising start, from there, it starts to lose steam and could never seem to pick itself back up, becoming increasingly less engaging and repetitive as it goes along. Below the surface, there is barely a story to be had here and that fact becomes incredibly evident by a drawn out and thin third act. It merely feels like the film is spinning its wheels, and never goes anywhere worthwhile while spending far too much time to get there. All of this concludes to an ending that is fairy predictable, and a little unsatisfying in relation to the journey getting there.

For a film that is supposed to capture such a timeless and powerful love story, it fails to convey the weight of that story in enough of a way that will have audiences care all that much about the actual romance between O’Dessa and Euri outside of the likeability of Sink and Harrison Jr.. The pair are boring together, for lack of a better word, as each character are afforded little to no character development over the course of the film. While Sink and Harrison Jr. offer up good performances, their chemistry fails to pop off the screen as it should, and that lack of chemistry is apparent from the start.

O’Dessa is almost certain to find an audience with those who love post apocalyptic films or adore bold, weird, and risky swings from filmmakers like this. Even though this effort is admirable and far from boring, it never comes together in the way you’d hope, making the end result rather underwhelming.

still courtesy of Searchlight Pictures

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Connor Carey

www.connorsmoviereviews.com/