The Odyssey
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Based on:The Odyssey by Homer
Starring: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong’o, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Samantha Morton, Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie, Bill Irwin, Corey Hawkins, Mia Goth, Travis Scott
Composer: Ludwig Göransson
Genre: Adventure, Action, Fantasy
Runtime: 2 Hours 53 Minutes
Synopsis
After the Trojan War, Odysseus begins the long journey home to Ithaca, where his wife Penelope and son Telemachus await his return. What should be a journey home becomes an epic struggle against gods, monsters, nature, and the limits of human endurance.
Review
The Odyssey may very well be the most beautiful movie I have ever seen. It is easily one of the most spectacular cinematic feats of recent years. Obviously, Christopher Nolan is a genius. That probably doesn't need to be said anymore. But what surprised me about The Odyssey is that his genius isn't found solely in how practically and technically impressive the film is. This time, I found myself far more impressed by the writing supporting it.
Yes, Nolan had some pretty good source material to work with. But adaptation is more than simply taking something from the page and putting it on a screen. What Nolan manages to do is pull out the thematic elements that have made The Odyssey endure for thousands of years and somehow make them feel immediate again. Some of that comes through in genuinely spectacular monologues, but I think even more of it comes from how grounded the mythology feels.
When you read The Odyssey, it reads like mythology. Gods, monsters, impossible journeys, and legendary men exist naturally within its pages. There is an inherent distance between us and the story because we know we are reading an ancient epic. Watching Nolan's grounded interpretation of that mythos does something different. It makes the myth feel real.
There were moments watching The Odyssey where I genuinely felt like I was sitting in a literature class, unpacking one of the greatest works ever written. Except instead of reading about this ancient world and trying to imagine it, I was watching the literature unfold in front of me. And somehow, that made a story thousands of years old feel alive.
Perhaps the most obvious thematic thread throughout The Odyssey is the value of human life and the civilization we build around a shared moral code. This isn't simply communicated through monologues, either. It is felt throughout the entirety of Odysseus' journey. We watch a man fight desperately to save his people, only to watch them fall around him one by one. There is something increasingly devastating about that journey because every loss seems to reinforce the value of what he is trying so desperately to preserve.
I could go on for days talking about how spectacularly written this movie is. It wrestles with whether a woman can be as effective a leader as a man. It tells stories of perseverance, loyalty, civilization, morality, and the seemingly impossible journey home. And at the center of everything is a man overcoming impossible odds, not because he is the strongest man alive, but largely because of his wit.
Of course, much of the credit for these ideas belongs to Homer. But adaptation demands more than simply recognizing what made the original work great. It requires understanding how to communicate those same ideas through an entirely different medium. That is where Nolan deserves tremendous credit. He understood the literature. More importantly, he understood how to make us feel it.
At one point during the film, I remember thinking to myself, I never imagined it like this before. There is a unique sense of terror in the way Nolan shoots and constructs this world that I never really felt reading the original literature.
When you read The Odyssey, so much of what happens feels fantastical. Men are turned into animals. Gods manipulate the natural world. Violent storms toss ships across the sea. A man encounters the infamous Cyclops. On the page, these moments exist comfortably within mythology. They are larger than life, out of reach, and in some ways, simply fun stories. But then you watch them happen to actual people. Suddenly, the mythology becomes terrifying.
Watching Odysseus and his men battle heavy winds and violent seas while sailing through the pitch black honestly takes your breath away. Not necessarily because you are in awe of the spectacle, although there is plenty of that, but because you begin to understand the strength required of Odysseus simply to keep moving forward.
That grounding completely changes the way you experience these stories. The monsters become more frightening. The ocean feels impossibly large. The darkness feels darker. And Odysseus no longer feels like some distant mythological hero who survived a collection of impossible adventures. He feels like a man. And somehow, that makes everything he survives feel even more impossible.
Yes, watching The Odyssey is a fun time. Of course it is. It's Nolan. At this point, we have come to expect cinematic genius from Christopher Nolan. We expect the massive practical filmmaking, the breathtaking cinematography, the technical precision, and the kind of spectacle that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible. But this time, Nolan somehow ups the game.
He grounds the ungroundable. He takes gods, monsters, impossible storms, ancient civilizations, and one of the most famous mythological journeys ever written and makes them feel startlingly human. And he does it with an incredible amount of nuance, never losing the wonder of the mythology while forcing us to reckon with the humanity underneath it.
From top-notch performances to breathtaking cinematography, a haunting score, and some of the strongest writing in Nolan's career, The Odyssey is the complete picture. It is spectacular without allowing the spectacle to become the point.
Thousands of years after this story was first told, Christopher Nolan made me think something I never expected to think while watching a story I already knew: I never imagined it like this before.
Final Grade: A+