‘O’Dessa’ Review: Sadie Sink in a Post-Apocalyptic Rock Opera With Maximalist Style and Minimal Substance

On the visual level, O’Dessa, writer-director Geremy Jasper’s follow-up to his 2017 crowd-pleaser Patti Cake$, revels in maximalism. Every set is littered with trinkets and lit in neon, every surface caked with layers of ancient grime, every costume a riot of textures and colors. Its narrative concept aims high, too, transposing the myth of Orpheus and Eurydice into a postapocalyptic Mad Max-meets-Blade Runner landscape. Its themes are heartfelt and grandiose: the power of music, the power of love, the power of music forged in love to transform the world. Related Stories O'Dessa The Bottom Line Too earnest to hate, too flimsy to love. Venue: SXSW Film Festival (Narrative Spotlight)Cast: Sadie Sink, Kelvin Harrison Jr., Murray Bartlett, Regina Hall, Pokey LaFargeDirector-screenwriter: Geremy Jasper Rated PG-13, 1 hour 46 minutes Underneath all those lofty intentions, however, the experience of actually watching the film is more akin to watching a really long trailer. There’s a distinctive eye here, and a promising sense of ambition. But in its current form, there’s not enough meat on its (admittedly cool-looking) bones to justify its 106-minute run time. The script feels cobbled together from a mix-and-match collection of well-worn tropes. Its titular protagonist, played by , is a lonely farm girl who dreams of hitting the road in pursuit of a bigger destiny — which, as the seventh son of a seventh son, is to become the prophesied “one who could stir souls, armed with a mighty guitar.” (O’Dessa’s disregard for the bounds of gender is one of its more interesting qualities; the real head-scratcher is how she can be anyone’s “seventh son” when she has no siblings.) When her mama succumbs to one of those vaguely defined movie illnesses that involves a few dry coughs and then a graceful first-act exit, O’Dessa strikes out for Satylite City. What she finds there is a den of corruption and cruelty under the spell of Plutovich (), the dictatorial host of a never-ending game show that’s essentially America’s Got Talent with Hunger Games consequences. But she also meets Euri (), a gifted musician and reluctant escort with whom she falls immediately and irrevocably in love. When the young couple are torn apart, it’s left to O’Dessa to venture into enemy territory and bring him back. This might sound like a lot of story, but O’Dessa’s chief issue is that few of these elements are expanded much enough beyond the bullet points I’ve outlined here. None of its formulaic beats have been substantially reimagined. None of the characterizations run deeper than the clichés they’re based on. Though the performances range from fine to good, they’re drowned out by the restless pacing and crowded visuals. The typically wonderful might be having fun as Euri’s vicious handler Neon Dion, but what you remember afterward are her extreme baby bangs and electrified brass knuckles, more so than anything she actually did. Meanwhile, despite the fantastical extravagance of those costumes (by Odile Dicks-Mireaux and Anna Munro) and sets (by Scott Dougan), there’s no distinctive sense of history to Satylite City or its environs — nothing to set it apart from the countless other cyberpunk dystopias that have clearly inspired it. Even the purity of its emotions becomes more liability than selling point. There’s no doubt that O’Dessa and Euri are passionately in love with each other, and Sink and Harrison work hard to sell the characters’ bond through yearning looks, sweet giggles, kisses so swoony the entire screen goes soft. But there’s also no complexity to their dynamic — no nuance, no conflict, no complicating history. Without it, we might as well be watching an add or a sizzle reel. Or, perhaps, a music video. O’Dessa is billed as a rock opera, and rarely goes more than a few minutes at a time before firing up another melody. (Jasper and Jason Binnick are credited for the music.) But it does itself no favors by establishing its hero as a chosen one capable of saving humankind with her guitar. There’s a reason Tenacious D only offer the tribute to the greatest song in the world, and Bill & Ted Face the Music eventually decides that what matters is not Wyld Stallyns’ virtuosity but their ability to bring people together. Promising a tune that singular sets a standard that’s impossible to meet, and this film never plausibly comes near it. The songs are sweet but not especially memorable, performed by Sink in a voice that’s pretty but unremarkable, and woven into rhythms of O’Dessa’s life rather than set apart by dramatic choreography. I suppose more razzle dazzle would have gone against the idea that the flashy Plutovich is offering empty distraction while the more modest O’Dessa is offering something real. But it’s hard to imagine these numbers altering the course of a listener’s day, let alone the future of an entire society. What might actually stick with a viewer is the film’s blurriness around the conventions of gender, which goes beyond simply swapping the male and female roles from the original myth. Neither O’Dessa nor Euri comes across as entirely masculine or feminine, at least in the ways those concepts are usually projected onscreen. She’s costumed in a soft butch rockabilly fashion, with slicked-back hair and a battered leather jacket; he’s an overtly sexualized stage performer in skimpy tops, silk robes and, at one point, a lace wedding gown. While their courtship unfolds along the usual beats of a star-crossed romance, it sidesteps the tacit power differential undergirding most onscreen heterosexual pairings. It’s easy to imagine an audience responding to the characters’ refusal to be pinned down by the stereotypes, styles or story arcs traditionally assigned to one gender or the other, maybe even turning O’Dessa into a cult favorite of some sort. I’m just not sure the film is sturdy enough to support a reading of these ideas that digs beneath the surface level. But it does feel fitting that a movie so heavily focused on looks would, ultimately, find its greatest meaning in an aesthetic choice.

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