Only the power of music can save your soul. I feel like we’ve seen this before. But, in Hulu’s exclusive premiere, O’dessa, the power of music compels you. What it compels you to do is a different question. it is possible that given time, O’dessa could be respected as a cult phenomenon. There are so many specific examples of movies that, for better or worse, popped into the zeitgeist even though by all accounts they shouldn’t have. Grease 2 has its own little following of fans, who either ironically or unironically watch the initial disappointment. when repo: the genetic Opera hit, it had fans and haters, but still somehow has a little devoted army. Hell, I’m sure there are people out there who don’t get The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Newsies was not a commercial success, but somehow managed to gain fans enough that Disney adapted it into a much more successful stage show. So, time and likely a collection of fans will decide if we are still talking about o’dessa twenty years from now.

It certainly can’t be accused of being boring. it is a dystopian fever dream, set in a futuristic slice of Americana that feels adjacent to films like Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome or Judge Dredd, but instead of this film being driven by action, it is driven by song. A young woman (Sadie Sink) leaves her quiet farm life and strikes out on the open road. After being far too trustworthy of strangers, her guitar goes missing, and the journey is really about getting it back. It is a family heirloom, and people are poor. However, along the way she runs into several interesting characters, Neon Dion (Regina Hall), Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett), and a diva singer Yuri (Kelvin Harrison Jr) who is n alluring centerpiece for entertainment in this oddly broken world. Little o’dessa must find the right song, and herself, to not only get her guitar, but to help Yuri get his freedom.

It is a mess. it is a lovely, catastrophic, bold mess. If you are going to make a film, please be bold and make choices. That’s how we get something like the Substance. If people didn’t take risks, Sean Baker wouldn’t exist, because he never would have made tangerine, or certainly not in the way he did, and no one would know who he is. Big original choices are the way to go, even if they don’t pay off. I would rather watch something that is extravagant and weird, yet misses the mark, than something that is derivative and dull, and somehow is formulaic yet unable to create even an average middle of the road film. those films, which feel like a dozen other films, yet also feel like the worst version of them, are far more excruciating to sit through than a film with risks. So, I would much rather collectively stand up for films like O’Dessa, Here, Joker Folie Aux Deux, and Megalopolis over derivative garbage like Tarot, The Painter, Afraid, or The Deliverance. Four films that felt like hundreds of other movies, but felt like the worst possible timeline version of them.

I love Sadie, and I hope this doesn’t affect her career at all. I’ve been dying to know if Max is going to participate in Stranger Things Season 5, and it is because Sadie Sink brought so much to that role. here, she has a nice voice, and her more acoustic songs work. But, there’s not much to love here.

There is audio description, but it describes the way I like it, where we try not to trample the music. Since there are several musical numbers, there is less audio description.

Rotten: Final Grade: C-, Audio Description: B