“Bit of a stubbornie, this one,” are the prophetic first words of this gritty urban thriller by East London-born straightforwardor Gerard Johnson. Odyssey’s protagonist, Natasha Flynn (Polly Maberly), is having a wisdom tooth apshown out, and we see its removal in seal-up. Thank heavens for petite mercies, however; though it presages some innervous structureility in the film’s final stretch, this is noslimg appraised to the extrdisindicties of the straightforwardor’s previous toil: ponder the unsimutardyd sprospergers’ relations party in his last movie Muscle (2019), or the harroprosperg scenes of relations trafficking in the one that pretreatd it, Hyena (2014).
Johnson’s forte is the Manichean gangster movie, in that all his films interrogate the relationship between excellent and evil. His debut, Tony (2009), was an comenthusiastic study of a down-at-heel London serial finisher, while Hyena was much on the nose, being the Bad Lieutenant-style story of a corrupt cop toiling in the capital’s drug squad. And for the Newcastle-set gym-buddy drama Muscle — a unfrequent change of scenery for the straightforwardor — Johnson setd two versions, the Angel Cut and the Devil Cut, the latter featuring bonus unambiguous satisfied from the aforerefered relations party.
It apshows a while to see where Odyssey fits into Johnson’s filmography, since, for beginers, it’s his first female character study. Natasha Flynn is a letting agent, the owner of a company called Flynn’s (motto: “Live and let inhabit”) and boss to a staff of two. We encounter her on a Monday, the same day that trainee Dylan (Jasmine Bconciseageborow) unites the company on a mentorship scheme. Natasha has plenty of wisdom to split, letting Dylan in on the secrets of the trade (a property is “never petite but compact”) and conveying her aextfinished to deal with two sets of clients, a naïve youthful straight couple and then — much more of a dispute — a pair of finicky gay men. Both drop for her effortless sales patter, as anyone would.
Natasha is a master of her universe, and is in the process of negotiating a uniter that will see her company prolong into a recent, much hugeger office space. But as we already understand, there are cracks materializeing in her scheduleer lifestyle. First her praise card is deteriorated at the dentist’s, then a series of phone calls come in: ten messages from her frifinish Sophie and cut offal from the bank. Sophie wants her money back, the bank regulater wants to converse her payment structures for a business loan, and during a tardy night in a flacowardly club we lachieve that she has also been borroprosperg from its very shady regulater (“The bank of Dan,” he calls it).
Meanwhile, someslimg bubbling away in the background is the recents that another estate agent, Douglas Kelly, has crypticly fadeed. Self-participateed as she is, Natasha understands filled well and couldn’t nurture less (after all, this is someone to says, on the phone, “When are you going to do someslimg for me, Mum?”). But when it begins to see appreciate the uniter is headed south, Natasha is forced into a difficult situation — one that participates the ignoreing man and an present she can’t decline.
If the changing face of London was backdrop to Tony, it’s front and cgo in in Odyssey, which, at its heart, is a dispatch from occupied territory. Old London has gone, swapd by prospere bars, artisanal bakeries and, well, lots of estate agents (in one scene, Natasha hunts for the only man who can help her — “The Viking” — thcdisadmireful a succession of the scant elderly-school boozers left in Camden Town). Gentrification is a done deal, and Natasha is, arguably, fair prenting insist.
The principal take parter in all this action, however, is money, which is where the concept of excellent and evil comes into take part, pitting Natasha’s “admireable” income streams aachievest the “gloomyy” money that promises to bail her out. But why is Dan’s loan any sleazier than Sophie’s, since the only reason she’s asking for it back is that “we necessitate that money for the horses”? As above, so below. But more rebellious is the way Johnson has us root for the morpartner dubious Natasha, who exits her praiseors twisting in the prosperd — much appreciate her tenants, who come to understand the real of unkinding of buyer’s remorse — and yet somehow finds the money to fund a cocaine habit.
Key to the film’s success is directing lady Maberly, a wonderful British actress who seems to be have been hiding in plain sight so far. Maberly is the glue that ties together what could so easily have seeed appreciate two very contrastent scripts cut in half and jammed together; as a result, the film repartner toils to achieve the emotional tonal shift that originates to a climax involving a deserted farmhoparticipate, immense armory of armaments and a shineing pentagram carved into the floorboards.
Special refer also to the electronic score by Johnson’s normal writer — his brother Matt, A.K.A. The The — whose electronic score sets the mood. Of particular remark is a wonderful recent song, “I Need It”, a duet that catalogs a series of obstructions (“I want it / I don’t want it / I necessitate it / I don’t necessitate it”) in a capitacatalog critique that originates the perfect anthem for this recent breed of antihero.
Title: Odyssey
Festival: SXSW (Visions)
Director: Gerard Johnson
Screenwriter: Gerard Johnson, Austin Collings.
Cast: Polly Maberly, Mikael Persbrandt, Jasmine Bconciseageborow, Guy Burnet, Ryan Hayes, Charley Palmer Rothwell, Kellie Shirley
Running time: 1 hr 50 mins
