The OA – Review

Brit Marling is an actress who might not be well-known to a big audience, but I have been watching her movies with great pleasure. Whether that’s Another Earth, where a second earth appears next to ours, Sound of My Voice which deals with a cult of the rebellious The East. The special thing about her is that she wasn’t only in front of the camera, but also wrote and produced these titles. They stand out by their science fiction/mysterious elements which usually it doesn’t focus on. What makes all these movies great is the personal stories that are told. Netflix only announced the show a few days before it was released and surprised everyone. Is this show just as surprising?

It opens with a cellphone video shot by someone from a car on a bridge. A blonde woman is walking across the lanes and jumps off the bridge. She survives and wakes up at the hospital. No one has an idea who she is. She’s got strange marks on her back and doesn’t like interacting. It turns out to be Prairie Johnson (Brit Marling), who had gone missing for year. Her parents (or aren’t they?) come to pick her up and in her old neighbourhood she meets Steve Winchell (Patrick Gibson), a local bully who’s having a hard time at home. Prairie calls herself The OA and is looking for someone called Homer. There are so many questions about Prairie, which she doesn’t answer directly. What has happened to her?

 With such a summary of the story it shouldn’t be a surprise that The OA is very mysterious. It also is different in its setup. A good example is the fact that with the first episode it takes about an hour before the opening credits are shown and everything “really” begins. The things Prairie tells sometimes seem unbelievable, but at the same time they are so detailed and convincing that it’s something she wouldn’t be able to make up. Marling manages to create a world which is extremely convincing and how her character manages various people to follow her in what she does (which others could consider a cult). The story is supernatural, mysterious, tense, violent, but also romantic and by Marling’s acting you are pulled into all of it and you can’t help to keep watching. A Netflix show which might not get as much attention as House of Cards or Orange is the New Black, but which should definitely give a chance.