‘O’Dessa’ Hits a Flat Note │ Exclaim!

There’s nothing more exciting in film than a big, ambitious swing for the fences. This might mean assembling every hero in the stable to fight against the odds, gambling on a big twist that recontextualizes the entire movie, or — as in the case of O’Dessa — a musical genre mashup made of pure chaos.

The film follows a young woman in a ’90s-inspired, neon-soaked post-apocalypse on a quest to find true love, leading to an eventual confrontation with a quasi-religious demagogue who preaches to the masses through CRT TVs. On paper, O’Dessa appears to be something new, interesting and unique. On the screen, it is, unfortunately, not. 

O’Dessa begins on the titular character’s (Sadie Sink) family farm with her mother. As an iridescent liquid called Plasma contaminates the farm, O’Dessa spends her time making makeshift guitars and singing.  Her father, long since passed, was a “Rambler” — a person who walks the land and sings in exchange for room and board — and O’Dessa eventually claims this life for herself, cutting her hair into a pompadour, donning a leather jacket and taking her daddy’s guitar as she heads out on her own quest.

It’s a clichéd setup, for sure, but one that provides endless story possibilities when a naïve young person hits the road. This film, however, fails to capitalize on that promise. The opening moments setting up the film are solid, and journeying with O’Dessa as she encounters various characters brings a lot of fun, but the movie grinds to a halt and never picks up again until the very last sequences — a frustrating ride to say the least.

O’Dessa — both the film and its title character — have a ton of potential. The set design captures an enticing world, the cast includes reliable performers like Mark Boone Jr., Regina Hal and Murray Bartlett, alongside emerging star Sadie Sink, who delivers an excellent performance and, as it turns out, can sing and play guitar, too. Unfortunately, none of these pieces come together to form a good movie.

Pacing issues hamper the film, with the middle hour of the 106-minute O’Dessa moving at a glacial crawl. The initial quest stops in its tracks when she meets Kelvin Harrison Jr.’s Euri, a sex worker and club singer. The two immediately fall in love, and her journey never recovers. Euri and O’Dessa’s relationship proves to be another major issue: the romantic leads, young and attractive as they are, have no chemistry together.

To top it all off, the music isn’t exactly bad, but it also doesn’t feel appropriate. The film is set in this post-punk dystopia that cries out for rock or punk music filled with righteous fury, but most of the songs come closer to country or bluegrass, and many of them are ballads, which just doesn’t quite fit. Perhaps O’Dessa‘s target audience is aimed at theatre kids in the middle of a ’90s phase, but not many others.

The film contains a lot of great moments, interesting ideas and bold design choices. Scene-stealing performances fill the screen at every turn, and there exists plenty of chances to examine our relationship with the past and the present, but nearly all of these points miss the mark.