O'Dessa | Film Review

While searching for a lost family heirloom, O'Dessa (Sadie Sink) meets Euri (Kelvin Harrison Jr.), and instantly falls in love. But in order to save Euri's soul, she must use her love of music to try and change the world.

To be honest, the main reason I watched this film was because it stars Kelvin Harrison Jr. I don't think it would have been on my radar otherwise.

This was a weird one. I definitely didn't hate it, but I don't think I could say it was a great film or really recommend it. And to be fair, it was clearly made to be weird, and it leans really heavily into its weirdness.

Another reason I was keen to watch it was because it was a musical, and music plays a huge part in the story. But while the songs themselves are nice, and do a good job of driving the story forward, they're not songs that stick. You probably won't look up the soundtrack once the film's finished.

The relationship between O'Dessa and Euri was the best part of the film. The characters worked really well together and they were sweet to watch. But in saying that, their romance was very underdeveloped. I appreciate the film not being too long but they really needed more time together to be able to build a foundation that the audience could believe.

The villain is also quite underdeveloped. Regina Hall does a great job playing her, but she doesn't have much substance. We don't know anything about her and (spoiler alert), considering the fear she instils in the characters, she's defeated way too easily.

But despite the character issues, the world itself was really creative and interesting. Again it could have been developed more but it's clear that a lot of time and effort went into making it

They needed at least 2 hours to tell this story, if not longer. Everything is based on surface-level ideas but there are good premises behind them. If we had more time to know the characters and this world, and the characters had more time to know each other, this could have been something really special, especially because it's so unique.

So overall, while the acting was great and I do like the premise, unfortunately there's too much missing to be able to truly love the story or characters.

4/10