The Offing: sisterhood and a harrowing roadtrip

By Montana May

The Offing (Koko Crozier and Lily Lunder, 2025)

"The offing", a nautical idiom that, in the literal sense, illustrates the meeting point between the sea and the sky; referring to a distant promise of hope on the horizon. 

Koko Crozier and Lily Lunder’s 2025 feature cleverly employs this idiom as a title, referring to the occult ritual within the film’s narrative, but also using the term as a key metaphor. One that represents the reprieve that the main characters sprint towards in escape from the traumatic pasts that have brought them together. Crozier and Lunder’s remarkable first feature film follows protagonists Neviah (Jaimie Wood) and Freya (Isabella Mangano), who find solace in each other’s company, sparking an enigmatic coming of age tale of sisterhood and liberation from past trauma.

The cold opening portrays Neviah, adorned in a white dress that’s stained by the blood of whomever she is brutally stabbing, establishing the ominous foreboding undertone that persists through the film. Cutting to a perfectly framed parallel, we see Neviah chop wood, part of the monotony of chores she tends to while living a reclusive lifestyle on an isolated farm.

Neviah’s colourless routine is halted by the fun and free-spirited Freya who seeks housing and work from the farm’s intimidating housemother, Agnes (Milijana Cancar). The palpable on-screen chemistry between the two lead actresses animates the sequence in which they skip away from the farm toward Freya’s caravan, a reminder of the girls’ age through a playful respite from darkness that tails them. The sunshine becomes shadowed when they shut the car door and the uplifting soundtrack suddenly stops, destabilising the fleeting sense of joy. This scene demonstrates how minute audio-visual details are mobilised by Crozier and Lunder, establishing a broader authorial signature of an interventionist style. 

Neviah has flashbacks to her younger self (played by Isobel Lauber with impressive fervour), revealing her experience growing up in an abusive religious cult. These flashbacks plague Neviah, accelerating as she and Freya depart on their roadtrip towards the beach 

There is not a single scene in the film that isn’t well executed and completely and utterly visually striking; the cinematography, set design and costuming are points of strength from start to finish. Crozier and Lunder’s shared thoughtful attention to detail is what makes this film so enticing, adding elements like a quiet camera shudder during a moment when Neviah feels like she is being watched, or the vanquishing reflection of Neviah’s childhood self in the water of a lake. These decisions on the directors’ parts feel like love letters to the viewers, hiding secret puzzles for the audience, and reinforcing Crozier and Lunder’s unique and invigorating stylistic voices. 

Additionally, at the Melbourne Women in Film screening of The Offing, the directors generously attached small thank you cards to each seat and surprised the crowd by hiding gifts for some lucky audience members. They let fate decide who wins a prize, coinciding neatly with the occult flair of the film, and underscoring the filmmakers’ deliberate, audience-conscious sensibility. 

Funnily enough, I managed to sit in one of the chairs hiding a prize underneath, which felt like a poetic sort of fate echoing from the screen and perfectly mirroring the gift that this film truly is.