Erik Adams
O’Dessa streams on Hulu beginning Thursday, March 20. This review is based on a screening at the 2025 SXSW Film and Television Festival.
What happens when you mix Streets of Fire and O Brother, Where Art Thou? with the look and vibes of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon? You get a bold, vibrant, catchy, romantic cyberpunk rock opera with memorable performances and rocking musical numbers seemingly destined for infinite fan edits once it drops on Hulu. One of the best scenes in all of Stranger Things involves Sadie Sink and a great song, but that doesn’t prepare you for just how great her singing voice is in O’Dessa. Director Geremy Jasper tasks Sink with carrying his follow-up to 2017’s Patti Cake$ – and fortunately, she (and the considerable shoulder pads of her retro-cool wardrobe) are more than up for it.
Sink plays O’Dessa’s title character with a stoicism that hides raw vulnerability: She’s a girl who acts tough, moves and dresses like Elvis, and sings like Hank Williams. In her mother’s words, she’s a “dirt farmer,” and the last in a long line of “ramblers” – troubadours who once traveled around a now-ravaged landscape lifting spirits and providing hope through song. All O’Dessa wants is to fulfill her dreams of going to the dystopian metropolis of Satylite City to experience all its chaos and grandeur, accompanied only by Willa, a legendary guitar made from a tree that was struck by lightning.
It’s a story that’s powered by an alluring grab bag of mythology: What initially appears to be a grimy Americana take on Homer’s Odyssey – with its long shots of countryside, train-hopping, and colorful side characters – quickly gives way to a cyberpunk retelling of Orpheus and Eurydice once O’Dessa reaches Satylite City and meets the beautiful dancer Euri Dervish (an electrifying Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Sink and Harrison have ample chemistry, and they truly sell this doomed romance drenched in neon and set in opposition to the dictatorial rule of a TV host named Plutonovich (Murray Bartlett).
Read what you will into Jasper creating a villain who’s a media-savvy tyrant running a high-stakes televised talent show, but any commentary in his script is less overt than this implied Trump analogy. The filmmaker prefers to make O’Dessa’s most powerful statements with its dazzling visuals and loaded costume choices. The central romance is one big middle finger to gender norms, with Sink playing humanity’s prophesied savior as an androgynous pop star with slicked-back hair and white tuxedo, opposite Harrison as her tender, graceful, gown-wearing lover.
There’s gusto in the songs, too, a soundtrack of 16 original numbers by Jasper and co-writer Jason Binnick that map O’Dessa’s journey onto the evolution of American popular music. Bluesy ballads with personal lyrics eventually give way to rockabilly and even acid-rock psychedelia. Sink finally gets to show off her Broadway-honed pipes on screen; it’s a shame it took this long for her to find this kind of role, because her vocals are simply enchanting. At a time when studios are still making musicals but appear hesitant to sell them as such (who puts together a trailer for Wicked with barely any footage of Cynthia Erivo and Ariana Grande singing?), here’s one that boldly proclaims what it is, with little time to rest in between music numbers. It joyfully goes from one song to the next, with the music keeping the story aloft.
Accompanying the catchy tunes is a strong visual aesthetic that makes O’Dessa stand out in a sea of indistinguishable cyberpunk stories. A sense of naturalism in the early scenes mingles with the look of a lost video-store favorite from the 1980s in Satylite City. There’s an environmental message in there, too, via the constant sight of oil pipelines in the countryside and the iridescent look of the oil that powers Plutonovich’s empire.
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