Had anyone told me I’d see Sadie Sink play an androgynous punk rocker who strums her guitar to try and save the world, I’d have said no way. This is not to say that I can’t imagine Sadie playing unique characters, because she’s one of the brightest young stars we have today. However, it just seems bizarre that such a movie would come out at all. O’Dessa tells the story of the titular character, who finds herself orphaned and alone on her barren farm after her mom passes away from sickness. In a land where plasma makes the grass purple and the water is dirt brown, O’Dessa must fulfill a prophecy, one about “the seventh son.” Yes, she is the seventh son, and that’s just the facts; nothing odd about it.
What’s special about O’Dessa is how it takes a truly basic sci-fi romance and elevates it through gender-role reversal and queer-coded politics. Visually, the film looks like it took The Hunger Games and I Saw The TV Glow and put them in a blender titled “for OTT.” Look, the color grading is necessary, but the costuming for the side characters, specifically the villain and his lover, could’ve been much better. However, that is probably the only downside to the film to me. O’Dessa knows exactly what it is. It’s a film about a chosen one, but this chosen one plays the 6 string and is meant to use the power of love to set everyone free from authoritarian rule. On the surface, you could watch O’Dessa as a love story between a ginger-haired folk singer and a blue-haired pop star oozing sex appeal. It is very clear these two people come from very different worlds, but their attraction is electric, and they’ve got nothing to lose, except for the power to love who they like.
I know this all sounds quite cheesy, but in a world where grass doesn’t grow because of plasma, and the only thing on TV is a show where people must entertain or get turned into “plasma-faced” humans, this seems like the appropriate reaction. But hey, if like me, you didn’t realize this movie was going to be a proper musical, let me tell you about it. The film has 3 songs in its first 12 minutes. You can imagine it continues to go on that way, but it’s not like In The Heights with song and dance, or even Pitch Perfect; it forges its way on its own. The film does use its songs to tell the story, but it doesn’t play out whole scenes through the songs. Most of them are simply a person and their guitar, rambling on until they find purpose.
So, it would be an utter disservice to the musical if I didn’t talk about the music. There’s definitely something familiar about the music of O’Dessa. I’m not a connoisseur, so I cannot comment on why it sounds so; however, I’ve been stuck with “Gorilla” by Bruno Mars ever since I heard the last song of the movie. I know, thematically, it has nothing to do with the film, not even the same genre, but somehow, I was constantly reminded of it. But I think this is a good thing, because it’s catchy music that’ll stick with you long after the film is over. Yet, despite being a movie about music saving the day, I don’t think the music matters that much. Somehow the amalgamation of everything associated with this film makes it the perfect movie.
For the queer, this is a revolutionary movie. It doesn’t fixate on one letter from the LGBTQ+ like much of queer media today does. It doesn’t insert queer-coded characters simply to draw in a wider audience. It’s not “trying to be woke,” as much as I hate to say there is such a thing as “being woke.” In O’Dessa, everyone is colorful, and everyone has been oppressed, so there’s a sense of melancholic bliss that looms in the purple skies of Satylite City. So, it’s a film for everybody, yet it is also for nobody. It is simply a film.
Sadie Sink plays the titular character with boyish charm while still oozing the traditional ideal of a “demure” girl. After having seen the movie, I can’t imagine anybody else embodying O’Dessa the way she did, maybe because it’s the music that truly ties her to the character. But she isn’t the only highlight of this movie. Kelvin Harrison Jr. plays her love interest, Euri, and he does it with such poise and elegance that you can’t help but feel mesmerized. At first, it seems this is an unlikely duo; they’ve got nothing in common, and their music is entirely different. But Euri is in this situation, the “damsel in distress,” and O’Dessa is the only one who can pull him out of sex work.
The one big dance number from Plutonovich will make you want to pull out your eyeballs and set them on fire (apologies for the violence), which makes perfect sense. He really does look like a character come straight out of the Capitol in The Hunger Games, only missing some extra makeup, or you wouldn’t know the difference. There are a few other characters, who aren’t as important, yet still compelling.
At the end of the day, I can imagine this becoming a movie we talk about some 20 years from now, much like the other stuff Sadie has been in, in the short span of her career so far. If you’re looking for something unique, something purple, or just something romantic, then O’Dessa will do the trick for you. The film does get a bit slow in parts, specifically in the middle, so if you’re one who gets bored easily, you might find those bits a bit tedious, but the overall movie-watching experience is positive enough to forget about those bits. I’d give the film 3.5 out of 5 stars. It’s a necessary film, even with its frivolous exterior, so give this one a go, and you won’t be disappointed.
