O’Dessa (2025)
O’Dessa (2025)
Blog Article
Geremy Jasper’s “O’Dessa” is an earnest misfire, an original rock musical that the “Patti Cake$” director claimed, in his introduction at SXSW, he had been working on for seven years. However, if you watch it, you can tell that it was originally developed in high school, if not even earlier. It’s a YA fiction project in George Miller clothes, a movie that never digs below the surface of any of its characters, refuses to build out its world, and can’t comprise a catchy tune. I like big swings a lot, so it's admirable that Jasper and his team stuck with something so unusual until the very end. But that doesn’t mean that any of this works for anyone else. It can be difficult for artists to convey their passion to viewers when they become so involved with a world they only imagine and characters they have cared about for years. I have no doubt that Jasper and his team adore O'Dessa's story. Never did I. Sadie Sink plays the title character, a young woman in a post-apocalyptic world of scavengers and violence that has a bit of “Mad Max” or “Repo! The Genetic Opera" energy, despite the fact that it never feels three-dimensional. O’Dessa’s father was a “rambler,” someone who wandered the land with his magical guitar, using his music to “comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.” When he died, the guitar made its way back to O’Dessa, who heads out after her mother’s passing to fulfill a prophecy. She is the “seventh son,” the troubadour who will inspire the people of this future to find a brighter one. She literally has only one personality trait that defines her. In what ought to be a story about a captivating savior, she is the chosen one, and further character development was not taken into consideration. This results in a striking lack of personality. It’s not long before O’Dessa’s guitar is stolen by a group of wanderers (led by Mark Boone Junior), forcing her to go to the city to retrieve it. She eventually finds herself entangled in the world of a vicious enforcer by the name of Neon Dion (a wasted Regina Hall, whose attire and cadence reminded her a little bit of Tina Turner's Aunty Entity), who works at an entertainment venue that hosts a singer by the name of Euri Dervish (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). "O'Dessa" starts to unravel at this point. Is Euri a star? A victim? Why is it difficult to discern what he is singing? He is, in fact, nothing more than a cog in the plot, a love interest for O'Dessa, but their relationship is pointless and empty. I don’t blame the performers, but it has to be impossible to develop chemistry when you’ve been given such shallow characters.
The plot and messaging of "O'Dessa" are shallow in every way. In a film that neither defines nor illustrates either concept, O'Dessa sings forgettable songs about "love" and "freedom" to kick off the revolution. One of the recurring lyrics is literally “free, free, free, free,” and another is a variation on “love is all you need.” A musical may not necessarily have a problem with heartfelt, shallow messages; however, for the universal themes to shine through, the other elements character development, world-building, stakes, etc. must be more nuanced. Nothing here strikes the heart or has teeth. It may be a product of a low budget, but “O’Dessa” also suffers visually. Its greatest inspiration appears to be “Max Headroom” as the plot culminates on a TV show run by a ruthless entertainer turned leader named Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett, the only one who seems to be having any fun during this production). A reality star turned tyrant might seem like a place that “O’Dessa” could come to life and have something to say, but even that opportunity is wasted in a script that seems to almost defiantly not have anything on its mind beyond love and freedom. Yes, great musicals have been built on “the power of love” before. But pulling that off requires something this movie never has a heartbeat.
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