The Odyssey

I'll say it right out the gate: Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey is a masterpiece. The film, based on Homer's epic poem, is utterly haunting in the best possible way. It's not only entertaining as a fantasy-historical-action film, it manages to say something true and earnest about human nature and man's continual and ongoing fuck-ups without coming off as preachy or sentimental. 

Nolan is, in general, a cold director. On a technical level, his films are excellent. But he's not really a director that makes you cry. Or, at least, he's not a director that makes me cry. My favorite film of his is The Prestige and I think one reason it's so good is because it's a film about obsession--a concept that Nolan is personally familiar with. That drive to innovate and be the best at what you do is something Nolan understands, and so his film about rival magicians trying to one-up each other, damn the consequences, feels honest in a way some of his other films don't.

But The Odyssey, despite its backdrop of war, violence, and suffering, is Nolan's warmest film to date. And not just "warm" in the sense that Penelope (Anne Hathaway) faithfully waits  for decades for her husband, Odysseus (Matt Damon), to return to her, or in the sense that Telemachus (Tom Holland) longs to finally meet his father one day. But warm in the sense that the film explores and seems to truly understand the tragedy of humanity and human weakness. There is an existential vulnerability explored in The Odyssey. Mere men cannot fight against fate. They cannot fight against the gods. 

That might sound the opposite of warm--it might sound nihilistic. But as someone intimately familiar with the Serenity Prayer, this shit hits different. Nolan's The Odyssey covers a myriad of themes: hubris, fidelity, betrayal, pride, memory, love. But the themes that struck me the most were acceptance and responsibility. 

The general plot of The Odyssey is fairly well known since many people had to read the poem in school. Or they've seen the Wishbone episode about it (or The Simpsons's take on it). Odysseus is the king of Ithaca who is instrumental in winning the Trojan War because of his idea to sneak men into Troy hidden in a wooden horse offered as a gift to Athena. Once the men are inside Troy, they open the gates to allow all the Greek warriors inside to sack Troy. During the journey home, Odysseus and his men run into obstacle after obstacle: the cyclops, being turned into pigs by Circe, the Sirens' alluring and deadly song, the tightrope of sailing between the whirlpool Charybdis and the monster Scylla, and, finally, Zeus's wrath. In the end, only Odysseus makes it home...only to have to fight all the suitors who have taken over his home in an attempt to woo his wife, Penelope. 

Nolan's The Odyssey covers all this ground and more, bouncing between Odysseus' journey (which is often shown out of chronological order), and Penelope's impossible situation of waiting for her husband while knowing that Ithaca needs a king. The movie never felt overly long, but it also didn't feel like it was moving too quickly either. A problem I had with Nolan's Oppenheimer is that there was so much stuff happening and so quickly, that the film felt both too long and too short at the same time. Not so with The Odyssey.

There are many scenes in The Odyssey that stand out to me, including Circe (Samantha Morton) turning Odysseus' men into swine, Odysseus screaming in agony as he hears the song of the Sirens while tied to the ship's mast, and the extremely satisfying scene of Odysseus stringing his own bow and shooting an arrow through 12 axe heads. But the scene that feels most central to the film is when Odysseus, disguised as a beggar, is invited to talk with Penelope. Under the guise of being a veteran of the Trojan War who knew Odysseus, he confesses to her about the weight Odysseus feels after the Trojan Horse scheme. How in winning the war, he may have damned humanity. The characters speak of "Zeus's law" throughout the movie: the command to provide hospitality to strangers and to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Odysseus believes that his trick broke Zeus's law on a massive scale:

We left them a gift in an offering of peace that they took into their home. We violated all that is ever sacred between people, and turned the fight into a hunt. To burn the walls of Troy was to burn the world entirely...one man's idea, one man's trick...to break Zeus's law forever. We lived in a world of palaces, trades, language, blinded by beauty...until we broke it.

After facing starvation, death, destruction, and literally taking a trip to Hades, Odysseus finally accepts that he is powerless in the face of the gods. It's when he gives up control that he finally makes it home and is able to grapple with what he has done and how the world has changed.

It's not lost on me that all the vile and disgusting discourse surrounding The Odyssey focuses on the racist and misogynist anger that this film has Black and Asian actors, as well as a prominent trans actor (Elliot Page)...but it completely misses a larger message about what it means to be "a man". Odysseus is a strong and wily warrior. No one could accuse him of not being manly. But all strength and all his cunning adds up to nothing in the face of the gods. It's only through surrender and responsibility that he proves himself to truly be a man, and to ultimately be reunited with his wife. The idea that the path to manhood is through emotional vulnerability, taking on responsibility, and coming to terms with one's mistakes and failings is something that would make the internet trolls and manosphere goons tremor to think on it. 

And speaking of manhood, Nolan is infamous (to me) for his lack of three-dimensional female characters. Take a look at his filmography and count the number of female characters who either betray men, kill themselves, or die to further a man's plot line. It's kind of astounding. The Odyssey still has these issues, but it doesn't feel as egregious to me as some of Nolan's other films. In fact, I think there's a feminist reading of this film because the women--including the goddess Athena (Zendaya)--all seem to understand the Trojan War for what it is: an excuse to dominate. It is men who cause the suffering, and women who bear the burden. 

Yes, The Odyssey is a man's story. It's a man's story of failure. Of hubris. Of coming to terms with dire, self-inflicted consequences. While the women are not as prominent, it's not because they're unimportant--it's because they didn't cause any of this shit and it's not their problem to fix.

A quick note about the acting and few technical aspects of the film and then I'll wrap up. I found ALL the actors to be excellent. Matt Damon kills it as Odysseus. Anne Hathaway excels as Penelope, one of the meatiest roles for a woman Nolan has ever written. John Leguizamo is heartbreaking as Eumaeus, Odysseus's trusted servant. Robert Pattinson is comically evil as the suitor Antinous. Some people seem to have not liked Tom Holland as Telemachus and Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, but, hell, I thought they were great! There is not a single performance I didn't think was at least good. I do think Charlize Theron was underutilized as Calypso, though.

The score by Ludwig Goransson (who also did the score for Sinners) was perfect--it wasn't as ear-blastingly loud as the scores for Oppenheimer (which was also Goransson) or Interstellar. It was powerful and present, but not dominating. 

I saw the movie in IMAX (regular, not 70mm IMAX) and it was totally worth it. The movie is made to be seen on a huge screen, and there was one scene in particular (when Zeus is destroying Odysseus' ship) that felt incredibly immersive. That scene takes place on a stormy sea at night, with thunder making your seat rumble and lightning punctuating the inky blackness. It felt otherworldly.

As I watched The Odyssey, I kept thinking: "This is incredible. This is incredible." For me, it's more than just a really excellent film. It's a feeling of reuniting with a director who has disappointed me a lot. The last time I really loved a Nolan film was Inception, which came out in 2010. And after hating Interstellar, being bored by Dunkirk, not bothering to even watch Tenet, and being disappointed by Oppenheimer, he comes back with what might be his best movie. And certainly one of my favorites of his. It's a nice feeling to into something and have it be better than your expectations. 

So, yeah, The Odyssey lives up to the hype. It has inspired me to pick up a copy of Emily Wilson's translation of the poem. It has even made me reconsider Christopher Nolan in a new light, something I thought would never happen. I don't feel the need to take back previous criticisms of Nolan because I think those criticisms still stand, but it's wonderful to see him make a movie that lives up to the hype of his most ardent defenders. 

Grade: A+