I wasnt into cinema, director Simon Davidson explains over the phone on a break from power washing his deck, [but] in the last year of my English degree I took a cinema class I fell in love with movies and I realized I wanted to go in this direction.
After three of his shorts screened at the Toronto International Film Festival Davidson decided to tackle a feature, and found inspiration in an article about high school gambling.
This kid was acting as a bookie for his friends," the Vancouver-based director of says. "When they were owed him money, and he wanted to collect, the relationships all changed.
Davidson quickly set to work on the script. I conceived it as a 20-page treatment for the feature, but I kept finding the endings unsatisfying, he concedes, and it evolved slowly over four years. Then one day he had a cold-blooded epiphany. I killed Barry [a lead character], cut a bunch of the side plots, and the ending started feeling better.
The Odds was born.
The story a Rounders/Brick mash up (sans noir dialogue) follows Desson (Tyler Johnston) and best friend Barry (Calum Worthy), high school poker players who are deep in debt to Paul (Jaren Brandt Bartlett), a bookie with a gambling den in his mothers basement. When Barry suddenly turns up dead, Desson starts making inquiries and stumbles upon a high-stakes gambling ring where questions incur beatings, and worse.
Despite South Park-style profanity that sometimes borders on silly and tough guys who arent, Davidsons script and measured direction maintain palpable tension, and Tyler Johnston who bears more than a passing resemblance to Tom Cruise proves a confident and competent lead.
Despite having inked a deal with a distributor (Kinosmith) during production, Davidson notes that taking The Odds to TIFF was not without its stress: When youre with a feature, people really care about you and press wants to write about you. It seems like the stakes are a lot higher, and I felt I had more responsibility to sell the movie.
And what did he think of the overall process? Getting the green light for production was pretty damn cool, and working with actual actors and the crew on set was great. And I absolutely loved the editing process as thats how you tell the story. Davidson pauses, then adds, Sometimes when shooting I thought Why the f--- did I write all nights scenes and the scenes with all these extras stupid idiot!
Heres betting that his hush-hush sci-fi project avoids armies in deep space.
The Odds is opening at Granville on Friday April 20 and the filmmakers are doing Q&As at Friday's and Saturday's evening shows at , 855 Granville.
