Tash (Polly Maberly) is keeping her life together by the skin of her teeth. She dodges calls from people she owes money to. She runs out of the dentist’s office when her payment won’t go through. She seems most at ease when she’s showing rentals to potential clients as an East London estate agent. Tash can get it done when it comes to work; it’s just the rest of her life — coke-fueled and with copious amounts of alcohol — that is falling apart.
In Gerard Johnson’s grimy new thriller Odyssey, we’re forced to bear witness to this crumbling life as it devolves into a violent frenzy. It’s an intensely sketched character piece, one that starts a thorough depiction of Tash’s everyday life. She owns her own office, the walls lit by neon signs you would find at an Urban Outfitters (one says “Live & Let Live”).
It’s clear that Tash is involved in some unsavory business, but, for much of the film’s runtime, the criminal underworld only peeks out subtly from around corners and through phone calls. The movie instead focuses deeply on Tash’s life as she walks the razor-thin edge of control before losing her balance.
Odyssey Is A Punishing Slow-Burn Thriller
Odyssey could easily be compared to films like Uncut Gems. Based on the film’s summary, it certainly seemed like that could be the case. Johnson shoots the streets of East London with a hazy glow, as if our minds are as clouded as Tash’s. Bursts of light still don’t illuminate even the darkest of corners. We see an ugly side of London — there’s no flashiness here.
While there are some similarities between those films and their counterparts, it feels a bit different and none of it would work with Maberly’s performance, as acerbically funny as it is white-knuckled and anxious. There’s a real sense of this character’s life and Odyssey doesn’t take too long to fill in the details — so much of it is inferred thanks to the script and Maberly.
Odyssey goes to some surprising places in its final act, almost becoming an entirely different movie.
In one key moment, Tash is asked about her phone, saying, “I need it.” When the person she’s speaking to looks surprised, she clarifies, “To be contacted.” But it’s easy to see that she uses the constant barrage of contact as a way of drowning out her thoughts. The people on the other end of the line are how she releases the tension so clearly built up in her shoulders, the way Maberly carries herself full of coiled-up rage.
When Tash releases all of that tension in the film’s ultraviolent climax, the relief on Maberly’s face is palpable. As her debt catches up to her, Tash finds herself involved in a kidnapping plot of a fellow estate agent with some shady men she owes some money to. Apparently, it’s common practice for estate agents to get involved in the criminal world of London.
Ultimately, Odyssey goes to some surprising places in its final act, shifting into a different register and releasing the tension of the first two acts in surprisingly sadistic ways. This release does not really bring any sort of comfort, shoving the ugliness of this world in our faces rather than promising us a tidy resolution.
Odyssey premiered at the 2025 SXSW Film & TV Festival.
