Odyssey

Gerard Johnson has built a reputation for making films that are less interested in the glamour of crime than in the people who live on its fringes. With Odyssey, which premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film Festival and Frightfest London 2025, he turns his lens to a sector that most viewers associate more with glamorous reality TV shows like Selling Sunset than with danger and moral decay: real estate. The result is a disturbing and unique film, a tense portrait of a woman whose professional ambition and personal flaws lead her straight into the clutches of the London underworld. At the heart of the plot is Polly Maberly, who delivers what may be the performance of her career as Natasha Flynn, a brilliant but disastrous real estate agent whose relentless ambition will be her undoing. From the very first scene, Odyssey refuses to sugarcoat Natasha's life.

We meet her in the midst of a meltdown, unable to pay for her dentist appointment, a seemingly minor problem that turns into a week from hell. It's a clever narrative device that shows us that Natasha's financial house of cards is already collapsing long before the loan sharks and kidnappers arrive. Polly Maberly embodies her with extraordinary intensity, giving the audience no respite. Natasha is always on the phone, giving orders, selling mediocre apartments with masterful precision and tearing down her colleagues, such as Dylan Rose, played by Jasmine Blackborow, the naive new recruit who quickly realizes how ruthless her boss is. At the beginning of the film, Natasha lets Dylan take the reins of a tour, then watches her stumble with glee before returning to close the sale with formidable efficiency. It's a moment that perfectly defines her character: manipulative, quick-witted, and absolutely refusing to let anyone else's success overshadow her own.

But beneath this steely exterior lies barely contained chaos. Natasha is in debt everywhere: to the dentist, the restaurant, and, even more dangerously, to criminal lenders who are far less forgiving than annoyed landlords. Gerard Johnson and co-writer Austin Collings understand that desperation is often more terrifying than malice. Natasha is not a hardened gangster or a femme fatale; she is a woman whose addiction to cocaine, alcohol, and the illusion of success drives her to make increasingly reckless decisions. She is not drawn to crime for the thrill or greed, but rather as a means of preserving her fragile empire. Seeing her constantly wriggle out of paying, especially when she throws a tantrum in a restaurant to avoid settling the bill, elicits both frustration and a perverse admiration. Like the best antiheroes, Natasha is magnetic precisely because she is terrible.

Comparisons to the work of the Safdie brothers, particularly Uncut Gems, are inevitable, and not without reason. Like Howard Ratner, Natasha is someone who can't help but dig herself deeper, convinced she can talk, maneuver, and outlast anyone who stands in her way. Cinematographer Korsshan Schlauer builds on this with a frenetic style that plunges us into Natasha's mind as it unravels. Handheld shots and distorted edges blur our vision, forcing us to share her tunnel vision as the world crumbles around her. London isn't presented as a picture-postcard capital, but as a city of claustrophobic offices, neon-lit alleyways, and late-night bars where survival is bought on credit. This visual claustrophobia mirrors Natasha's mental state, giving the film a pace that feels constantly on the verge of cardiac arrest.

Yet Odyssey is more than just a harrowing journey. It is also a sharp commentary on gender dynamics in a ruthless industry. Natasha's interactions with men like Dan, played by Guy Burnet, or the mysterious enforcer known as The Viking, played with silent menace by Mikael Persbrandt, highlight the subtle and not-so-subtle misogyny she faces. Whether it's an intrusive gesture during a professional conversation or disparaging remarks from her own employees, Natasha is constantly reminded of her status as a woman, which makes her inferior in the eyes of those around her. This is not a classic tale of a woman who rises from rags to riches by breaking the glass ceiling, but rather what happens when that ceiling collapses on her, shattering any illusion of control.

However, the script is careful not to portray Natasha as a victim. Her manipulations, lies, and abuse of power are just as responsible for her downfall as the systemic misogyny she faces. One of the most disturbing aspects of the film is the ease with which professional ethics are flouted in real estate, an industry where selling quiet apartments often means scheduling viewings when noisy neighbors are away. Gerard Johnson uses these well-known tricks to highlight Natasha's moral decay. When she teaches Dylan these manipulative techniques, the horror doesn't come from the intrusion of the criminal world, but from the realization that Natasha has always operated this way.

As the story unfolds, the stakes intensify, escalating from unpaid bills and evasive phone calls to kidnappings and violent ultimatums. The loan sharks who haunt Natasha's week push her into situations that border on outright criminality, and the film's third act shifts into high gear, venturing into more overtly violent territory, closer to an action thriller. Here, the tension that has been building since the beginning finally erupts, unleashing itself in explosions of blood and brutality. While this change of tone is unanimous, it divides audiences, but it undeniably confirms that Odyssey is a film that does not want to offer viewers a safe and well-crafted resolution. Natasha's final liberation, both physical and emotional, leaves us as exhausted as we are cathartic.

Despite all its darkness, what makes Odyssey remarkable is Polly Maberly's performance. She embodies Natasha with such precision that the character becomes both exasperating and hypnotic. Polly Maberly projects an outward confidence while allowing glimpses of the exhaustion and fear that eat away at Natasha deep inside. Her ability to balance these contradictions—arrogance and despair, cruelty and vulnerability—makes the character endlessly fascinating. It's a rare role for a woman in crime cinema, usually reserved for arrogant male protagonists, and Polly Maberly seizes it with total commitment. It's no exaggeration to say that her performance is one of the most memorable of this year's SXSW.

Odyssey is not just a thriller, but also an edifying tale about the price of survival in a world that sells success as individual achievement while ignoring the network of debts, lies, and compromises that sustain it. It asks whether boundless ambition is just another form of self-destruction. And while it takes familiar paths, Gerard Johnson infuses it with enough style, social commentary, and raw emotion to set it apart from the rest. Despite all its grime and cruelty, the film is impossible to look away from, a hypnotic descent into chaos of a woman who thought she could outsmart the world until it caught up with her.

Odyssey
Directed by Gerard Johnson
Written by Austin Collings, Gerard Johnson
Produced by Isabel Freer, Jamie Harvey, John Jencks, Patrick Tolan, Matthew James Wilkinson
Starring Rebecca Calder, Tom Davis, Mikael Persbrandt, Peter Ferdinando
Director of photography: Korsshan Schlauer
Editing: Ian Davies
Music: Matt Johnson
Production companies: The Electric Shadow Company, Stigma Films
Distributed by NC
Release dates: NC
Running time: 110 minutes

Viewed on August 23, 2025 (Frightfest press screener)

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