10/03/2025 - Gerard Johnson delivers another hard-hitting film, descending into the hell of the London property underworld and following in the wake of an impressive Polly Maberly

It’s been clear ever since Hyena [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gerard Johnson
film profile] and Muscle [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Gerard Johnson
film profile] that English director Gerard Johnson doesn’t pull any punches and likes to thrust audiences into the chaos and excesses of the modern world. His new opus, Odyssey, which was unveiled in a world premiere within the Visions section of Austin’s SXSW, is no exception, but this time round the filmmaker has added the extra excitement of a female lead character whose violence (initially of a verbal kind), domineering instincts and predatory ambition could easily compete with her male counterparts’ in this ruthless capitalist context revolving around sales, and more specifically property, which provides the film’s backdrop.

A formidable professional who can turn pumpkin housing into glittering-carriage-calibre accommodation through the sheer force of her energy and words ("we don’t ever say small, we say compact", "if it’s totally isolated, it’s semi-rural, a peaceful location"), Natasha Flynn (the exceptional  Polly Maberly) heads up her own agency in London, a city she criss-crosses endlessly with her mobile phone glued to her ear and expletives falling from her mouth (except with clients, of course) as she makes her little team (Jasmine Blackborow, Kellie Shirley and Charley Palmer Rothwell) jump through hoops. Despite being hungry for success, addicted to coke and a party animal to boot, she’s beyond lonely, trapped on the treadmill of frenetic days (apart from yoga in the mornings) and drunken nights spent in clubs or in her vast, luxurious but cold apartment. Crucially, she finds herself in a perilous financial position, crippled with debt (and harassed by phone by her creditors) and waiting feverishly for a life-saving merger. It’s an impasse which fast becomes an infernal spiral when two creatures of the night (Guy Burnet and Ryan Hayes) to whom she owes money, drag her into a kidnapping and a crime of false imprisonment. Backed into a corner, Natasha calls upon an old friend: the enigmatic Viking (Swede Mikael Persbrandt)…

A blend of hyper-realism (a piercing and volatile portrait of social contrasts in London, the ferocious “morals” underpinning the property sector, etc.) and stylization (reminiscent of Winding Refn), Odyssey progresses through borderline nightmare territory at the hectic pace of its tempestuous and belligerent protagonist, who’s caught in the trap of her own greed. A deeply dark thriller and a brutal exploration of the sizeable gap between the artificial and the true selves, the film takes delight in probing the shadows, to the tune of omnipresent, highly evocative music courtesy of The The. The movie doesn’t shy away from any kind of excess (including the occult) and the road to its Dantesque ending will unlikely leave viewers unscathed.

Odyssey was produced by The Electric Shadow Company and Stigma Films.

(Translated from French)