O’Dessa (dir. Jeremy Gasper)

By: Adam Freed

Behold the very real dangers of excess.  Audiences can thank writer and director Jeremy Gasper for a stern reminder that too much of a good thing, rarely amounts to something good.  Gasper’s Hulu original film O’Dessa is a dystopian musical nightmare existing somewhere between Mad Max (1979) and The Journey of Natty Gann (1985).  The film’s titular hero is played by Sadie Sink (Stranger Things, The Whale) whose performance both musically and artistically prove one of the only laudable aspects of the bloated psychedelic mess of a film. O’Dessa is a farm girl tasked with embarking on a quest in pursuit of her family’s precious heirloom, a magical guitar that once belonged to her ancestors.  

O’Dessa asks audiences to follow along on a journey that proves to be anything but magical as it spins a tonally wavering web of interactions with one static character after another against decreasingly realistic backdrops.  To its credit O’Dessa attempts to establish an alternate reality in which world building is a must.  Quite distractingly though the seams of the dystopian world’s creation are either intentionally or unintentionally left visible.  Nowhere in Jeremy Gasper’s alternate reality rock opera does O’Dessa’s quest to reclaim her heirloom and free society from a mind controlling wasteland overlord by the name of Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett) does audience response seem to have been considered.  Murray Bartlett’s portrayal of the dictator who preys on the addictive qualities of screen delivered misinformation is disappointingly flat and a few ingredients shy of the sadism that may have made Plutonovich memorable.

What intrigues in the opening act of O’Dessa is trying to grab hold of the shifting tonal landscape of a film that either aims to be either a psychedelic odyssey or a folk inspired musical journey.  The brutal reality is that had O’Dessa adhered to only one of these diametrically opposed concepts, it still would’ve fallen far short of being an engaging experience.  As is, Gasper’s psychedelic dystopian musical feels like a horrible dream from which its capable cast of talent cannot wake.  While the experimental film is short on highlights, most notable is the vocal performance of Sadie Sink, who wows with multiple vocal performances that shine a much needed spotlight on the young star’s vocal prowess.  The songs, like the film itself, vacillate between memorable earworms and forgettable interludes that neither advance the film’s plot nor one's understanding of its characters.  Jeremy Gasper’s O’Dessa is all but certain to find a cult following given the experimental nature of its presentation.  For mainstream audiences though it is sure to remain as a glaring warning sign of the dangers of excess.   

Target Score 2.5/10 Jeremy Gasper’s Hulu original film O’Dessa is both way too much and equally not enough of anything substantial.  Although the titular character is captured aptly by the gifted Sadie Sink, her compelling performance is lost in a bog of a meandering plot and confusingly clumsy production design.  Ultimately, music lovers are best to search elsewhere for a rock opera of consequence.