Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey Is the Epic We Truly Need Right Now: Review

As much as it might dance around in time, there is one constant throughout Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: Odysseus (Matt Damon) has seen some shit. The director’s highly anticipated follow-up to Oscar-winning Oppenheimer is a true blank check moment, as Nolan adapts Homer’s epic, millennia-old tale of a soldier returning home from war after a few detours. Doing so is an opportunity for Nolan to obsess over stylized period details, work with a remarkable cast, and continue exploring the concept of war as not an opportunity for glory, but as a corrosive element that tears societies and people apart.

If you’re not familiar with the core text, the story is a simple one: Following the conclusion of the Trojan War, Ithican King Odysseus sets sail for home with his men. Unfortunately, their trip is full of perils, especially after Odysseus’s men manage to piss off the gods, leading to much death and years of delays.

And there’s no happy homecoming in store for Odysseus either, as his exceedingly patient wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland) are basically being held hostage by Antinous (Robert Pattinson) and other suitors laying in wait for Penelope to give up on her missing husband and pick a new one to marry.

Nolan feels determined to make this project as accessible as possible to a modern American audience, drawing his cast from today’s biggest blockbusters — Holland, Jon Bernthal, and Zendaya will all be reunited on screen in just two weeks for Spider-Man: Brand New Day. In fact, you could describe this movie to fans of comic book adaptations like so:

“Fake Loki from the play in Thor: Ragnaork is married to Catwoman but Fake Loki’s gone missing so Batman wants to marry Catwoman and become king. Oh and Batman keeps threatening Fake Loki’s son Spider-Man, who goes to see the Punisher for answers on where his dad might be, but the Punisher isn’t much help because the Punisher doesn’t know that Fake Loki’s been shacked up with Doctor Strange’s future wife Clea. Oh, and the Punisher is married to Black Panther’s girlfriend. And Spider-Man’s girlfriend MJ is also there.”

All of the above and more speak with a clear American accent, and as the trailers have previously revealed, ample use of modern phrasing, including Telemachus’s frequent references to his dad. That choice of “dad” versus “father” (which isn’t that challenging a word for audiences) does feel a bit jarring, especially in contrast to the production design and costuming all working very hard to create a convincing version of the Bronze Age.

Almost predictably for a Nolan project, this is a fully realized world rich with technical precision; while there’s no set-piece here quite as stunning as the Trinity Test in Oppenheimer, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema does able work in bringing to life both fantastical and human horrors.

The fall of Troy is particularly striking, a night-time assault lit only by flame. Technically, this sequence took place in Homer’s prequel, The Iliad, but its inclusion here is an essential lynchpin of Nolan’s take — so much so that it’s teased out over the course of the film before being revealed in full, the movie not sparing any details about just how unpleasant hiding inside the infamous Trojan horse must have been. (Wood is pretty porous. Didn’t anyone outside notice the smell?)

Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) tells at least part of this story to Telemachus, then checks another item off the “things everyone remembers about this story” list when he refers to how Helen (Lupita Nyong’o) has “the face that launched a thousand ships.” That moment, however, comes with a dark twist, one sold by great acting from both stars.

It’s a stacked cast overall, though Damon without question is the star here, an unshowy performance that still manages to communicate deep levels of frustration and despair over the course of his many-years journey. Meanwhile, Anne Hathaway establishes Penelope as a woman full of agency and fire, making it clear that it’s an unjust world that doesn’t allow her to rule on her own.

Samantha Morton has received a ton of acclaim for her performance as Circe, and it’s all well deserved. Robert Pattinson delivers just the right mix of squirrelly menace, as does fellow suitor Corey Hawkins, and also doing essential work is Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, Odyssey’s second-in-command (who has very understandable doubts about his king’s decisions on their quest for home).

John Leguizamo was perhaps the biggest revelation, a steady yet fierce force who could be this year’s Veteran Actor on His Way to a Supporting Actor Oscar Win. (I’m wrong as often as I’m right about these things, but I did correctly predict that Robert Downey Jr. would win for Oppenheimer, for whatever that’s worth.) Only one real complaint when it comes to the cast: Charlize Theron feels a bit wasted as Calypso, taking almost a passive role.

There are many scenes that feel like they might hit a little harder with an R rating instead of PG-13 (not just because of a latent curiosity about Cyclops dong, but still). That said, those sensitive to animal violence will experience a few uncomfortable moments. It’s also a bit hard to emotionally hook in with the film at the start, opening as it does with multiple glimpses of characters across various points in time and space — there’s a lot thrown at the audience pretty fast, and some measure of patience is required before the picture comes fully into focus.

If there’s one area where The Odyssey feels a little rushed — wild to say about a three-hour movie, but still true — it’s in the way the story’s more fantastical elements are brought into play; there’s an almost matter-of-fact approach to their introduction, one that almost leaves the viewer wondering how much is “real.”

The mythological creatures encountered, the magical works of Circe, and a quick trip to the borders of the afterlife to speak with the dead all seem to confirm that this is a fantasy tale. However, there is room for interpretation with some elements, especially the otherworldly presence of Zendaya as the goddess Athena, this movie’s spinning top of ambiguity.

In general, you can draw a lot of connections between The Odyssey and past Nolan works: Odysseus gets lost in a fog of memory, like Memento. He’s grappling with the horrors of war he helped bring about, like a scientist named J. Robert Oppenheimer. Blondes are untrustworthy, like in The Prestige. And as with so many of his movies, we’re afloat between the past and the present, flashbacks nestled within flashbacks.

All that said, the Nolan film The Odyssey most inspires comparison to is Inception — a man adrift in the world, yearning to return home to a family that feels lost to him. Except The Odyssey makes a much deeper impact, because the reasons for this separation are outside of his control, a consequence of that great engine of war, fueled by human lives and happiness.

There’s a lot of discussion in The Odyssey about Zeus’s law, and the importance of hospitality in honoring each other. Operating in direct opposition is the concept of war, depicted here as a tragic inevitability of greed and hubris, an antithesis of proper society and potentially proper society’s true ruin. Leaving the theater, a quote came to mind from the recent PBS documentary Once Upon a Time in Space, in which NASA’s Ginger Kerrick talked about the experience of working on the International Space Station:

“World leaders are not interested in things that benefit the human race. They’re interested in things that benefit their nation. But for a little while, I lived in a world that didn’t operate that way, and it was beautiful. And any of us that have lived that life really believe there is more we can accomplish together.”

What The Odyssey depicts is the exact opposite of that idea; a society torn apart by war — a dying society, as a result. Nolan doesn’t point his finger at any particular modern-day conflict, but he makes a point of mentioning that we only know this story because it was one of the very few that were written down during that era; the world in which it was first told is long gone. It’s not a subtle message. But these are far from subtle times.

The Odyssey arrives in theaters on Friday, July 17th. Check out the latest trailer below.