Every month, Netflix adds close to a hundred new films alongside dozens of shows. With that much content, it’s always a mystery which titles will emerge popular and victorious, and which will sink to the oblivious bottoms of its massive library. Usually, productions from Netflix regulars like Adam Sandler always perform well. However, sometimes a surprise contestant swoops in to take the spoils.
This week’s surprise entry is a film titled Only. It wasn’t made with an absurdly-large budget, nor does it feature any particularly well-known actors. Despite these setbacks, however, the pic has been dominating the Netflix Top 10 movies list for several days and now sits comfortably in the #5 spot. Its popularity isn’t that mysterious, though, when you look at the cast list, as one of its stars, Leslie Odom Jr., plays a major part in the musical Hamilton. Recently made available on Disney+, the historical epic continues to take the world by storm.
In the musical, Odom Jr. plays Alexander Hamilton’s lifelong political rival, Aaron Burr. Though Burr was white, and Odom Jr. is black, Hamilton employs race-blind casting in an effort to tell the age-old story in a new way.
Odom Jr. won himself a Tony Award for his performance in the musical, and his acting talents translate perfectly from stage to screen. As one of the lead actors of Only, he does not disappoint.
Premiering at Tribeca in 2019 but only hitting theaters in March of this year, Only takes place in a world struck by a deadly virus which forces a young couple to hide out in a sanitized apartment where they must try to survive. Sound familiar?
If you haven’t yet seen it, the film certainly makes for an enjoyable watch and it’ll be interesting to see how long it maintains its popularity on Netflix‘s charts.
