Odds On is an exemplar of the way in which on-line theatre has developed up to now few years. Dante Or Die’s interactive manufacturing is each for and concerning the digital world, with a concentrate on its addictions, utilizing the strategies of movie and the aesthetics of gaming.
Written and directed by Daphna Attias and Terry O’Donovan, it feels gimmicky at first: we select a consumer title and avatar earlier than clicking to spin the reels in a pc recreation. It's a important solution to enter the story of Felicity (Fiona Watson), a retiring GP who turns into slowly depending on a web-based playing recreation. We see her in her remaining days on the workplace adopted by a brand new life at house, taking care of her child grandson, Noah (Oshy Fuller), whereas her son (Elan James) and daughter (Bianca Stephens) bustle within the background or dial in for Zoom calls.
All of the whereas, a recreation known as Pearls of Fortune is superimposed on the display screen to recommend that it's omnipresent in Felicity’s life, its tinny Calypso beat accompanying all that she does. We see how the sport turns into an informal however compulsive type of playing, with a ticker on the prime of our screens capturing the factors she has scored and the sum of cash she has received or misplaced.
Shot on numerous areas utilizing an iPhone, and operating half-hour, it appears tailored for a technology of Sweet Crushers with attenuated consideration spans. But it carries a punch far past its bite-sized storyline, partly due to the immersive nature of Felicity’s recreation, and likewise the interludes of animation (directed and edited by John Brannoch) used to intensify the emotional highs and lows it brings.
As Felicity turns into ever extra addicted, she falls into the sport itself, turning into her octopus avatar. This has a cute and comforting Discovering Nemo high quality but additionally reveals the insidious ease with which the stakes are raised in on-line video games, and its numbing lure to Felicity, who's performed by Watson with convincing vulnerability.
There's an particularly highly effective second when she describes how overwhelmed and bewildered her retirement has made her in a dialog together with her husband, Joel (Maynard Eziashi), who transforms into an animated dolphin as she talks. It takes some time to grasp that that is a part of her fantasy world and that confiding in him about her furtive playing is simply wishful considering.
The animations and haunting soundtrack – composed by Yaniv Fridel and Ofer (OJ) Shabi, with sound design by Ben Kelly – have a naive form of energy and the movie’s remaining, stunning aerial shot of sea waves and open skies provides us hope for Felicity whereas leaving the story open-ended.
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