“Bit of a toughie, this one,” are the prophetic first words of this gritty urban thriller by East London-born director Gerard Johnson. Odyssey’s protagonist, Natasha Flynn (Polly Maberly), is having a wisdom tooth taken out, and we see its removal in close-up. Thank heavens for small mercies, however; though it presages some extreme violence in the film’s final stretch, this is nothing compared to the extremities of the director’s previous work: consider the unsimulated swingers’ sex party in his last movie Muscle (2019), or the harrowing scenes of sex trafficking in the one that preceded it, Hyena (2014).
Johnson’s forte is the Manichean gangster movie, in that all his films interrogate the relationship between good and evil. His debut, Tony (2009), was an empathetic study of a down-at-heel London serial killer, while Hyena was much on the nose, being the Bad Lieutenant-style story of a corrupt cop working in the capital’s drug squad. And for the Newcastle-set gym-buddy psychodrama Muscle — a rare change of scenery for the director — Johnson prepared two versions, the Angel Cut and the Devil Cut, the latter featuring bonus explicit content from the aforementioned sex party.
It takes a while to see where Odyssey fits into Johnson’s filmography, since, for starters, 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 live”) and boss to a staff of two. We meet her on a Monday, the same day that trainee Dylan (Jasmine Blackborow) joins the company on a mentorship scheme. Natasha has plenty of wisdom to share, letting Dylan in on the secrets of the trade (a property is “never small but compact”) and bringing her along to deal with two sets of clients, a naïve young straight couple and then — much more of a challenge — a pair of finicky gay men. Both fall for her effortless sales patter, as anyone would.
Natasha is a master of her universe, and is in the process of negotiating a merger that will see her company grow into a new, much bigger office space. But as we already know, there are cracks appearing in her designer lifestyle. First her credit card is declined at the dentist’s, then a series of phone calls come in: ten messages from her friend Sophie and several from the bank. Sophie wants her money back, the bank manager wants to discuss her payment plans for a business loan, and during a late night in a flashy club we learn that she has also been borrowing from its very shady manager (“The bank of Dan,” he calls it).
Meanwhile, something bubbling away in the background is the news that another estate agent, Douglas Kelly, has mysteriously disappeared. Self-absorbed as she is, Natasha knows full well and couldn’t care less (after all, this is someone to says, on the phone, “When are you going to do something for me, Mum?”). But when it starts to look like the merger is headed south, Natasha is forced into a difficult situation — one that involves the missing man and an offer she can’t refuse.
If the changing face of London was backdrop to Tony, it’s front and center in Odyssey, which, at its heart, is a dispatch from occupied territory. Old London has gone, replaced by wine bars, artisanal bakeries and, well, lots of estate agents (in one scene, Natasha hunts for the only man who can help her — “The Viking” — through a succession of the few old-school boozers left in Camden Town). Gentrification is a done deal, and Natasha is, arguably, just satisfying demand.
The principal player in all this action, however, is money, which is where the concept of good and evil comes into play, pitting Natasha’s “respectable” income streams against the “dirty” 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 need that money for the horses”? As above, so below. But more subversive is the way Johnson has us root for the morally dubious Natasha, who leaves her creditors twisting in the wind — much like her tenants, who come to understand the true of meaning of buyer’s remorse — and yet somehow finds the money to fund a cocaine habit.
Key to the film’s success is leading lady Maberly, a great British actress who seems to be have been hiding in plain sight so far. Maberly is the glue that binds together what could so easily have looked like two very different scripts cut in half and jammed together; as a result, the film really works to earn the dramatic tonal shift that builds to a climax involving a deserted farmhouse, vast armory of weapons and a glowing pentagram carved into the floorboards.
Special mention also to the electronic score by Johnson’s regular composer — his brother Matt, A.K.A. The The — whose electronic score sets the mood. Of particular note is a great new song, “I Need It”, a duet that lists a series of contradictions (“I want it / I don’t want it / I need it / I don’t need it”) in a capitalist critique that makes the perfect anthem for this new breed of antihero.
Title: Odyssey
Festival: SXSW (Visions)
Director: Gerard Johnson
Screenwriter: Gerard Johnson, Austin Collings.
Cast: Polly Maberly, Mikael Persbrandt, Jasmine Blackborow, Guy Burnet, Ryan Hayes, Charley Palmer Rothwell, Kellie Shirley
Running time: 1 hr 50 mins