If done right, film can place us in another person’s shoes, giving us a glimpse into their lives. Luca Pizzoleo gives us a biting and light-hearted look into the mind of someone who has Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in O.C.D.
Owen (Raz Fritz) is a young man who stops off at a liquor store to buy a pint of ice cream for his influencer girlfriend, Anna (Ariel Martin). Tonight is an important night as Owen will have dinner with Anna’s parents.
Alas, our hero suffers from almost debilitating O.C.D. As Owen wanders the store aisle, he is compelled to straighten out the products on the shelves. Anna calls him to walk him off the ledge of insanity, trying to convince him that the world won’t come to an end if the random store he walked into is a bit imperfect.
“…a cataclysmic event occurs when a single pint of rocky road is placed in the middle of a stack of vanilla ice cream.”
Just as Owen comes to his senses, a cataclysmic event occurs when a single pint of rocky road is placed in the middle of a stack of vanilla ice cream. As Anna tries to reason with him, Owen is met by ‘The Agent’ (Steven Ogg), who orders him to fix the situation or all hell will break loose.
O.C.D. is all about helping us understand the inner shouting match in our minds that is Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder. In the case of Owen, he goes back and forth between trying to hold on to the realities of a perfect world and the voices in his mind that warn him of every doomsday scenario when imperfections are about to exist.
The quick edits, performances from our three leads, and a story written by Conor Patrick Walsh allow filmmaker Luca Pizzoleo to keep us as an audience constantly off balance. We find sympathy for Raz Fritz’s Owen without losing our own mental stability. In fact, the comedy O.C.D. is perfect, allowing audiences to sympathize and understand a small scintilla of the world that is Owen’s mind.
"…A comedy so sharp, it'll keep you perfectly off balance."
