Review: Octavio is Dead!

In writer-director Sook-Yin Lee's sophomore feature, Octavio is Dead!, the sublime Sarah Gadon portrays Tyler, a wraith of a woman who was raised by her emotionally volatile single mother Joan (Rosanna Arquette) after her father left her when she was a baby. Not long after Tyler loses her job, she discovers that her father has died and that he, much to her mother's displeasure, left her the sole heir to his estate.

Deciding she wants to know more about the father she never knew, she impulsively decides to get herself out from under her domineering mother's thumb and head to Octavio's apartment in the big city. There in the clutter of her late father's dilapidated apartment, seeds are sown that we may be in for some type of ghost story. Flickering lights, rattling pipes, and faucet taps turning on by themselves give way to the presence of Octavio's ghost. Yet this is no ordinary ghost story; rather it is a story of a young woman's sexual awakening.

Attempting to find out more about Octavio, Tyler cuts off her hair and wears her father's suits in order to gain entry into a private men's club that he often frequented. There she meets Apostolis (Dimitris Kitsos), who worked with and greatly admired Octavio and was possibly his sexual partner. Apostolis is drawn to Tyler, not realising she is actually a woman, and complications naturally ensue.

One isn't quite sure what to make of Octavio is Dead!, which seems to be operating on a frequency known only to Lee and the cast. It explores the complexities of human connection, sex, gender, and identity, yet there's a wispiness about it that prevents the film from gaining any sort of traction. Nevertheless, Gadon remains a compulsively watchable presence, imbuing depth and luminosity in a character searching for her true self.

Octavio is Dead!

Directed by: Sook-Yin Lee

Written by: Sook-Yin Lee

Starring: Sarah Gadon, Raoul Max Trujillo, Rosanna Arquette, Rachael Crawford, Billy Otis, Ho Chow