Nolan’s The Odyssey: Review & Analysis

A superior, updated moral for our times

https://youtu.be/eerLd6MtKAE?si=CbsRZm7hQITXR1Br

Background & Expectations

Amidst the horrible air quality that held my city hostage for a few days last week (hooray for multiple levels of government gutting environmental protections to make a buck), I journeyed out to see Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey.

Not because I'm a particular fan of either Nolan (my mild audio processing issues make half his films incomprehensible without subtitles) or the source material (always preferred The Iliad), nor even to support the film against the apparent online backlash over its casting choices. Honestly, I think it was mostly Angela Collier's video from a few weeks ago, where she speculated on how Nolan would handle various aspects of the text, that got me interested at all. Then, let's face it, the cultural zeitgeist probably pushed me over the edge.

Angela rightly points out that much about Homer's Odyssey clashes with our culture and world today. Just look at the role of women in this foundational western story—it's no wonder that Circe, A Thousand Ships, The Penelopiad and many more stories have been written to re-examine these characters through a feminist lens. Natalie Haynes' Pandora's Jar also offers a brief but powerful critical look at the original depictions of these women.

But Angela's main focus was on slavery: that this mythical Greek world was built on the back of slaves, that Odysseus owns slaves and that his final "heroic" act of vengeance in the text is to execute many of them.

So, how does Nolan thread the needle of staying true to the story while not alienating his audience? Let's get into it in spoilers below.

Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus (1891), by John William Waterhouse

A Great Film

For my part, I think Nolan manages to thread the needle fairly well. He avoids the erasure route by specifically naming these characters as slaves, while also omitting Odysseus and Telemachus' grisly execution of Ithaca's slave women at the end of the story—instead just having Penelope push disloyal Melantho to her doom in the battle with the suitors.

Nolan also gives Penelope and Helen more complex characterization than Homer, but their overall roles ultimately remain unchanged. Calypso is a neat framing device for the first half of the story but doesn't particularly shine as a character in her own right. Circe's scene with Odysseus' men is one of the best in the film—those transformations, oh my—but then Odysseys shows up, says he and his men are actually the good ones, and she just meekly exits.

For me, the film's at its best when it's following Odysseus and his crew. Polyphemus, the Laestrygonians (forgot about that encounter, what a scene!), Circe, Hades, Apollo's cattle, his scenes with Athena, and especially the flashbacks to Troy—it's gorgeous and tense and I couldn't get enough of it.

Odysseus and Polyphemus (1896), by Arnold Böcklin

The suitors plotline didn't do much for me, in comparison. (Maybe it's just Tom Holland? I haven't even seen Uncharted but it feels like such a joke to cast him as a teen again after having him man up for that film years ago.) Pattinson and Hathaway and everyone else killed it—even Bernthal's mob boss-esque Menelaus was enthralling—so maybe it's simply down to my not liking the premise of it.

The central point of Homer's epic is about Odysseus and Penelope's love and loyalty: him braving constant dangers and the antagonism of the gods to return to her; her delaying choosing a new husband in hopes he will one day return. It's nice, it's quaint, it's human. But I would have been disappointed leaving this film with a pure moral about love and loyalty in the year of our dystopia 2026. Thankfully, Nolan agrees.

From early in the film, we hear rumours of mysterious "Sea Peoples" attacking Greece (a cute nod to real history) as a pressing reason for Penelope to marry and thereby resecure the Kingdom of Ithaca. At the same time, we see Odysseus flashing back to the sacking of Troy, and in particular the temple's statue of Athena being decapitated. We also get hints from Athena and Calypso that Odysseus may not be so eager to get home after all. Finally, the whole film places enormous emphasis on "Zeus's Law" (xenia): treat others (particularly travelers and guests) with respect, for you never know who might be a god in disguise.

Would you believe that, rather than an eclectic bunch of worldbuilding, all of this is setting up the real, gut-punching heart of the film?

Odysseus Between Scylla and Charybdis (1806), by William Bromley

Burn to a Cinder

We learn that Odysseus feels incredible guilt for the trick he played which resulted in the destruction of Troy. He left the city an apparent gift from the gods, which they brought behind their walls in trusting respect of Zeus's Law. (Admittedly, a bit of a stretch perhaps. But the rest works so well that I can go with it.)

When the Greeks betrayed that trust and fell on Troy with absolute violence, Odysseus fears that he has destroyed Zeus's Law and the advanced civilization it allowed; that humans will again become beasts incapable of trust or empathy. Penelope then realizes that the Sea Peoples aren't mysterious foreigners at all, but rather the violent and greedy Greek armies returning from Troy provoking a general societal cascade into barbarism.

And while that moral about the death of empathy is new to this interpretation of the story, it fits beautifully with the concept of xenia that already pervades The Odyssey—I was going to list examples, but frankly the whole damn story is about hospitality and trust and homecoming when you think about it.

I chose Epica’s Burn to a Cinder for the featured song today because it captures the mood at the end of Nolan’s film: mourning the loss of empathy and rise of xenophobia while swearing to either fight it or flee to somewhere better. We see Telemachus take up the Ithacan crown while Odysseus and Penelope sail into the sunset, both to honour his fallen men and to find a brighter future for themselves.

Agamemnon in the film, art by weeramix

Safe Travels

All that to say, you probably already know whether or not you’ll enjoy The Odyssey. It’s an adventure/political fantasy story with a star-studded cast and a nearly 3-hour runtime—your mileage will absolutely vary.

If you're someone who is genuinely on the fence, I do recommend it. I'll take a wonderfully diverse cast any day, and between the filmmaking craft and ultimate moral on display, I think it stands head and shoulders above the vast majority of films released these days. Plus, Agamemnon's design is just goddamn wild.

Last week I wrote about wanting to collect lessons and truths about the world in one central place, and hey, I think The Golden Rule of being nice to people probably deserves a spot on the list—though I certainly hope it's not one I would completely forget otherwise.

Thanks for reading and until next time <3