Writer-director Geremy Jasper, who brought us Patti Cakes, is back with the ambitious rock opera O’Dessa. I love a good musical, and O’Dessa has a few great songs in it to justify their existence. Set in an apocalyptic future where the dictatorial Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett), who kidnaps anyone who speaks out against him, has everyone glued to their TVs watching him on every reality compeтιтion show imaginable, O’Dessa banks on love and music being powerful tools to wake people up from their stupor.
The тιтular character (Sadie Sink) is the last of her family of ramblers and, armed with a magic guitar, ventures to the city to fulfill the prophecy that’s been pᴀssed down for generations. The тιтle cards at the film’s start give us background regarding what to expect from the story, but what follows doesn’t exactly deepen the initial premise. When O’Dessa gets to the city, her guitar has been stolen and she’s got nowhere to go, until she meets Euri (Kelvin Harrison Jr.)
Regina Hall as antagonist Neon Dion is a delight, but there isn’t enough of her. O’Dessa is not on the same level she and Murray Bartlett are on.
I appreciated what O’Dessa was trying to do. To its credit, it’s got a lot of style and flourishes that might make it a cult classic one day. There’s something about it that feels nostalgic, though it struggles to marry its various themes together. It’s tonally imbalanced, caught between being a gritty apocalyptic nightmare and an earnest love story. O’Dessa’s biggest issue is that it doesn’t know how to be both at the same time.
O’Dessa Has A Lot Of Style But It Operates As Different Movies In One
I’m all for some cheesy dialogue, but there’s a darkness that pervades the film and I found myself wishing it would lean into that completely. The film takes its time building up to what we know will happen — Euri being taken and O’Dessa going after him — and yet the stakes ring a bit hollow because O’Dessa feels like two very disparate movies in one. To be sure, Kelvin Harrison Jr. and Sadie Sink are good, but the material they’re given isn’t the best.
The songs always start off as more folk-like before transitioning to a more pop/rock sound. Had the film stayed true to its folk roots, or even seen O’Dessa’s music style change to fit her new life, it would have made more sense for her development.
Her character is meant to inspire people, but I didn’t feel much inspiration watching as Sink sang songs on the streets for people. Perhaps it’s because O’Dessa is thrust into this world she was never fully a part of before she arrived in the city (she didn’t know who Plutonovich was, for example) that it’s too overwhelmingly hollow to ring true. It doesn’t help that the world of O’Dessa is disjointed. It’s pulling pieces from multiple areas and trying to glue them together.
Regina Hall as antagonist Neon Dion is a delight, but there isn’t enough of her. O’Dessa is not on the same level she and Murray Bartlett are on. Everything they do works; they’re committed to their roles but are also having a lot of fun. This is where the differences between their stories and the love story are most obvious. The film wants the beautiful, do-anything-for-love kind of romance but it cuts corners to get there. It has its sweet and tender moments, especially when O’Dessa sings to Euri, but there’s also a lack of depth that permeates the film.
Harrison Jr.’s character is sorrowful, a stark contrast to O’Dessa’s hopefulness, but his story is more compelling. His anger about his life and against Plutonivuch makes sense. O’Dessa’s struggles are far less potent and she doesn’t earn her big moment by the end, which weakens the overall film.
There’s something powerful about the film’s use of music. O’Dessa simply wants to make people feel again, as Plutonovich has convinced himself that he keeps doing his shows to give the people hope when it’s really to maintain control over them. After all, a people who are distracted by other things — no matter how downtrodden their reality is — won’t commit whatever energy they have left to fighting. It’s not their fault, but Plutonovich’s system’s, which is meant to keep them that way.
The way it depicts the surrounding characters as people who have lost their ability to feel, their eyes constantly glued to their TVs, unmoving, is all too real. But while O’Dessa has a lot of style, it doesn’t have much else. Its substance is sorely lacking, with a lot of jumbled ideas and themes that don’t come together. It’s a movie with a lot of potential and, while it commits itself to the overall story, it doesn’t land.
O’Dessa premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival and will be available to stream on Hulu on March 13.
