By Roberto Salazar
@Yahomie_Robert19
O’Dessa is a futuristic film about an aspiring young girl named O’Dessa, played by Sadie Sink (Stranger Things, The Whale), on a journey to fulfill her father’s prophecy to light the world from darkness through the power of music and love. The post-apocalyptic world is a unique frontier for the musical genre, but the choice of rock and roll is a connective choice for pairing music to match this world.
One of the things that caught my attention was the beautiful cinematography accomplished by cinematographer Rina Yang (Euphoria, The Fire Inside), from capturing spectacular exterior shots to giving us cleverly composed scenery and lighting that kept the story moving accordingly.
Not only was the cinematography great, but the vast color palette of the film was astonishing, giving us a variety of feelings throughout. This use of color was a standout process because the typical post-apocalyptic process is a full wash of color, but the music must have been viewed by the DP as needed to express the flavor of the music that was chosen for the story. It set the tone perfectly for every single scene from start to finish and gave it a (Blade Runner) look.
A key element of the film that hooked me from the beginning was the musical aspect of the movie. From country ballads to country rock, we get a variety of songs/performances that deeply move us along the way. Not only do Sink and her co-star Kelvin Harrison Jr. (Elvis, It Comes at Night) do an amazing job performing the film’s songs, but they also give us, the audience, great chemistry. Their romance makes you feel for them, two lost souls finding purpose within each other.
One of my favorite moments was the musical scene “Rambling down the road” between Sink and Bree Elrod( Shutter Island, Red Rocket). Although a brief moment in the film, Elrod and Sink give us a very powerful mom and daughter duo.
On the powerful side, Regina Hall ( Girls Trip, Scary Movie) gives us one of her most intense performances as Neon. I had a hard time recognizing who she was when I first saw her. Throughout the film, Hall gives us tense and suspenseful moments, keeping us on our toes every time she’s on screen. Hall brought up looks and portrayals stylizing presence that remind me of Tina Turner in the “Mad Max: Beyond the Thunderdome” performance.
As much as I enjoyed the film, it does come with its flaws. Throughout the film, we see our antagonist, ‘Plutonovich,’ played by the great Murray Bartlett (The Last of Us, The White Lotus), screen himself on every television set, “distracts” the majority of the population from the post-apocalyptic world they live in.
This becomes annoying and repetitive very quickly. Every time we see him on screen, he repeats the same scripted lines
over and over. This leads to a lack of depth in his portrayal. I noticed the civilization was portrayed as brainless, and this reduced the depth of the story through the characters of the story. This lack of conscious people who only tune in to the Plutonovich show led to a flatter, less varied delivery of other characters.
I did understand that the film takes place in a post-apocalyptic era, but it did not capture the survivor aspect very well. With that said, O’Dessa is a roller coaster journey with a great and
tragic musical adventure. Overall, I found the film enjoyable and fun, though its target audience is younger than my demographic.
