“O’Dessa” (2025)
Two parts “Mad Max,” two parts “Blade Runner” and one part “Once,” “O’Dessa” combined movies I love to make somewhat of a muddled mess.
Perhaps the most apt recent comparison is “I Saw the TV Glow.” I can easily see this achieving some cult success with queer folks at the gender swapping love story and non-binary coded romance between the two lead characters.
While I loved “I Saw the TV Glow” (it’s my second-favorite film of 2024), “O’Dessa” left a lot to be desired.
This musical sci-fi fantasy love story follows O’Dessa (Sadie Sink) as she makes a trek from the outskirts of society to the only with her daddy’s guitar in hand and stories in her head of how he told her that she was destined for greatness.
When she gets to town, she crosses paths with Euri (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), and they quickly become inseparable.
I love musicals, so the musical aspect, along with the love story between O’Dessa and Euri, kept me watching. I will say, if you’re not a musical person, this movie goes heavy on breaking into song, so it might be a detractor for you.
However, the plot and some of the performances kept me from really loving “O’Dessa.”
Perhaps the biggest offence in “O’Dessa” is misuse of Murray Bartlett as the big bad guy, Plutonovich. To me, Regina Hall’s character, Neon Dion, was more menacing, tenacious and fascinating, but she was made to be the secondary bad guy in the movie, even if she was the main person throwing the wrench in the love story between O’Dessa and Euri.
After star-making turns in the shows “The White Lotus” and “Looking,” I was really looking forward to Bartlett’s big break in a movie, but I was left very disappointed.
At the end of the day, “O’Dessa” made me want to rewatch some of my favorite movies, films that are far more memorable to me than this will ever be.