Christopher Nolan‘s “The Odyssey” begins with a man standing on a table in a banquet hall, telling a story. It’s a perfect way to start a movie that’s about the importance of stories and the manner of their telling, and how stories can deceive and liberate us, comfort and disturb us, split us apart and bind us together.
The story that the man in the banquet hall tells is not “The Odyssey,” though. That would be the film you are presently watching. The storyteller—played by musician Travis Scott, who cowrote and performed the closing credits music—is but one tiny piece of it. We’re further along than in medias res, close to the cathartic final bloodbath. The storyteller’s selection covers a key event in the Trojan War, featuring the fearless warrior Odysseus (Matt Damon) and the fabled Trojan Horse. Here, as throughout this majestic new feature from Nolan, you may expect to see again what so many other filmmakers have shown you, and instead are presented with a new take on an old tale. There’s plenty to see here. Some of it will leave folks wondering, “Hold on, did I forget about that part?”
For starters, the story of the Trojan Horse isn’t in Homer’s The Odyssey. Nor is it told in its predecessor, The Iliad, also by Homer. It’s taken from stories by other poets, most likely from Virgil’s Aeneid, which was written centuries after Homer. And instead of the standard image of the horse standing upright on four-wheeled legs (like a child’s toy), it’s introduced partly buried in shallow water on a beach, posed as if it’s rising up on its back legs from beneath the sand, and must be dragged on a platform of rolling logs. Odysseus, his pal Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), and the other Greek warriors are packed inside, a tangle of limbs and faces. We’re told they’ve been in there for days, and that several of them died before the Trojans happened along, which raises hygiene questions the movie thankfully doesn’t answer; presumably, the stench of dead flesh hid other smells.
Nolan, who adapted the script, takes liberties, but they’re in the name of simultaneously expanding and uniting various accounts of Odysseus’ deeds in service of a larger, more elusive goal. In its heart, “The Odyssey” is still about a legendary warrior and king of Ithaca, beloved husband to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway), who dutifully waits for him to return while piggish suitors eat her food, drink her wine, and “corrupt” her servants, hoping she’ll finally give in, pick one of them, and remarry. Odysseus is a caring father to his son Telemachus (played as an adult by Tom Holland). His subjects love him, or so we’re told. The film recounts how he and his troops left Ithaca to fight in the Trojan War, got stuck in that quagmire for ten years, and wandered another decade for reasons that could be his fault, the results of the Gods’ whims, or some mix.
The interplay of chance and fate is a through-line of this IMAX epic, which feels shorter than its 172-minute runtime, thanks mainly to Nolan and his regular editor Jennifer Lame (who won an Oscar for cutting “Oppenheimer“) treating time as as less a line than a map spread out on the screen, and moments as spots that can be visited and revisited, their significance changing with every return. Lessons learned in “Oppenheimer” and demonstrated with a frenzied urgency there are applied in “The Odyssey” with a confidence that is, for Nolan, easygoing. Distant past, recent past, present, and future are shuffled like a deck of cards until such descriptions lose their meaning, except in relation to the characters as they age and look back. For them, every event, every memory, every story is present tense. There’s a scene where a character tells a story which itself contains another story. The presentation is as fluid as our own thoughts.
Gods and humans from elsewhere in Greek mythology make appearances. There’s Athena (Zendaya), whom only the hero sees; Lupita Nyong’o in a dual role as both Menelaus’ wife, Helen, whose abduction triggers the Trojan War, and her twin sister, Clytemnestra, wife of Odysseus’ strong right-hand, Agamemnon (Benny Safdie, aka Edward Teller in “Oppenheimer”). Nolan’s script mixes in bits of The Iliad, The Aeneid, and 20th– and 21st-century translations of The Odyssey, with their own embellishments. The result is a sort of OEU (Odysseus Expanded Universe), minus a post-credits scene where Zeus asks Odysseus to join the Olympus Initiative.
There was a clickbait-y bit of culture war nonsense when it was announced that Nyong’o, a Black woman, had been cast as Helen—as if that were a sin against a story that also contains the tentacled sea monster Scylla; Poseidon’s outcast son, the one-eyed Cyclops; the sirens, whom Odysseus and his men manage to evade; and the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron), who falls in love with Odysseus, and gets him addicted to lotus flowers that render him an amnesiac and prevent him from reuniting with Penelope. And Circe (Samantha Morton, whose performance is by far the scariest thing in the film), the daughter of the sun god Helios and the Oceanid Perse, who transforms men into animals by, let’s say, a different method than you’re used to seeing. There’s also Elliot Page‘s Sinon, a Greek infantryman who plays a pivotal role in the Trojan horse episode as a twist on the “naive boy soldier fated to die” trope, and returns posthumously, in a scene that owes as much to George Romero as Homer (much of this material is likewise lifted from The Aeneid and other sources).
All of which is another way of saying this story is under no more obligation to practice monocultural casting than an adaptation of a Shakespeare play (think of Denzel Washington as Macbeth); nor should it be expected adhere to a numbskull’s idea of historical accuracy (those who disagree should check out the Ian McKellen version of “Richard III,” set in an alternate universe 1930s England, or Julie Taymor’s film of “Titus,” which is very Mad Max). Nolan’s egalitarian approach here is not just defensible but inspiring. Casting actors of many nationalities and ethnicities affirms that Homer, like Shakespeare, and like so many great storytellers from so many countries, belongs to everyone. Nolan also matter-of-factly casts Page, a transgender performer who was in Nolan’s 2010 hit “Inception,” as a ferocious male warrior, and puts John Leguizamo in the role of Odysseus’ blind friend and advisor Eumaeus, letting him speak in character in his real-world Bronx Puerto Rican accent. (Leguizamo might be due for a ceremonial “you’ve been great for decades in everything” supporting award, but he’d have to get past Robert Pattinsonas Antinous, the smoothest of the suitors, and a man so snide, petty, and duplicitous that you want to reach up and slap him.)
Other films have done this sort of thing, notably Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Temptation of Christ” and Ridley Scott’s “Gladiator,” and it always casts a warm glow over otherwise harsh stories, subtly letting us know that the filmmakers appreciate every performer as a person. Complaints about the plainspoken, often vernacular dialogue (with Telemachus referring to Odysseus as “my dad,” for instance, and the warriors, including Odysseus, occasionally employing modern profanity) are misguided, too. One might as well complain that the actors aren’t all speaking Greek.
Technically, as you’d expect from this director, the movie is mightily impressive, for its scale, the graceful way it moves from one time period to another, and for the tactility of its imagery. You can almost smell the sea, the congealing blood, the flowers. That metal horse clearly weighs a lot—and it looks as if the Trojans (and the actors portraying them) have to strain to transport it. In one of Odysseus’ war flashbacks, a burning building, perhaps thirty meters high, collapses as stunt performers run or take cover; we can sense the heat and weight of the impact, just as we can when watching footage from real 21st-century war zones. This is the best part of Nolan’s commitment to (mostly) analog filmmaking, including the shot-on-film part: it makes you feel physically connected to onscreen events, in ways you can’t with slovenly, weightless “miracles” slapped together with ones and zeros in an entertainment factory.
The sacking of Troy is as horrifying as could be without seeming gratuitously “hardcore.” Odysseus’ men are derided elsewhere for committing “rape and murder” in the name of Greece, and while we don’t see the former onscreen, there’s plenty of the latter, including unarmed women and children wantonly slain. The finale is as rousing as you want and need, but not so much that we forget that these are people whose rule is based on genetics, and whose leader has done evil things in the name of good, not all of them defensible.
But the movie doesn’t give us any ChatGPT study guide summaries of what it all means. It presents Odysseus’ choices, laudable and horrible, just as things that happened, with implications that both the hero and the viewer must grapple with. The grand summation could be “people are complicated.” Yes, that’s as basic as it gets. But it feels revolutionary when it’s encoded in a rare modern blockbuster that doesn’t feed us lotus flowers.
[POSTSCRIPT]: A few readers have pointed out that the 2017 Emily Wilson translation of The Odyssey starts with, “Tell me about a complicated man,” and that Nolan told Empire Magazine last November that the Wilson translation is what made him want to adapt The Odyssey. These readers wonder if I was making a coded reference to that translation. I wish I were that clever. The last translation of The Odyssey that I read was by Princeton Professor Robert Fagles, before interviewing him for a Star-Ledger feature thirty-plus years ago. But at least now I know what the next translation will be …
I’ve been reading The Odyssey my whole life. Nolan’s film version is exhilarating – but not perfect
'The Odyssey' review: An epic only Christopher Nolan could make
Maybe you're like me, reader — a cynic. A jaded filmgoer. Maybe you heard that Christopher Nolan would be adapting Homer's epic saga of gods, monsters, reunions and retributions and thought: Him?
The guy whose aesthetic leans to the fixed, the grounded, the tactile, the particular? Who's never been averse to a certain amount of cinematic sprawl and spectacle, sure, but who's famously disinclined to the more emotive, expressionistic aspects of the human experience like wonder and awe — to giving oneself over to pure, ecstatic fantasy. (You know — the stuff we tend to think of, rightly or wrongly, as the domain of Spielberg.) I mean, this is the guy who turned the dang Batmobile into a brutalist doorstop, you know?
When the first footage from Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” dropped, some of the worst people on Al Gore’s internet lost their minds (Elon Musk chief among them). They decried its inaccuracies, even though Homer’s epic poem is not only mythological, but also part of an oral tradition where it was expanded upon and reshaped over centuries. To disallow artistic license when it comes to “The Odyssey” is to deny its very essence.
It stands to reason that Nolan, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind “Oppenheimer” and “Inception,” would take creative liberties with Homer’s tale in order to trim a 600-page story into a 3-hour film and put his own stamp on it. His Odysseus (Matt Damon) is a broken man haunted by visions of the Trojan War who, aided by the guidance of Athena (Zendaya), clashes with gods, sirens, giants, scylla and a cyclops on his 10-year journey home to Ithaca, where his loyal wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and callow son Telemachus (Tom Holland) are fending off dozens of suitors, led by the cruel Antinous (Robert Pattinson), vying for her hand — and Odysseus’s throne.
Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” deviates from Homer’s tale in a number of ways. Here are all the differences between movie and book.
[Warning: Spoilers ahead…]
One of Nolan’s major changes to Homer’s epic poem concerns two of its central characters: Odysseus’ wife and son. In the book, Telemachus berates his mother on several occasions, even ordering her to her chambers to resume weaving after she requests a “less painful” song from the bard, commanding, “Speech will be the business of men, all of them, and of me most of all; for mine is the power in this house.” His condescension toward his mother surely represents patriarchal attitudes of the period. Nolan reversed their roles in the film, with Penelope frequently upbraiding Telemachus for his immaturity and even proclaiming how, if she had her way, she would watch the suitors “burn” to death. This is a more self-possessed Penelope than we’ve ever seen.
Sinon & Antinous
The character of Sinon, a double-crossing Greek soldier (and Odysseus’ cousin) who tricks the Trojans into bringing the Trojan Horse inside the walls of Troy, isn’t mentioned in “The Iliad” or “The Odyssey,” but rather Virgil’s “Aeneid.” Nolan repurposed the character, played by Elliot Page, in his film, turning him into an Ithacan shepherd boy who took Antinous’ place in being drafted for the war, and is misled by Odysseus into sacrificing his life so that the Trojan Horse can be brought inside Troy. Later, when Odysseus encounters Sinon’s dead soul in Hades, the fallen soldier tasks him with returning a totem to Antinous to remind him of his cowardice. It’s an interesting narrative choice by Nolan that casts Antinous, the most notorious of Penelope’s suitors, as even more of a spineless ass.
Helen of Troy & Clytemnestra
While both are minor characters in Homer’s poem, Nolan’s made a few changes to the characters. Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra twin sisters in the film when they are half-sisters in the book, and left Helen of Troy with a giant scar across her face as a mark of shame for its launching a thousand ships.
The Laestrygonians
If you were one of the many people curious if those heavily-armored, sword-wielding giants Odysseus and his crew clash with in “The Odyssey” trailer were in the book, well, they aren’t. Nolan took considerable creative liberties with the Laestrygonians, a tribe of man-eating giants descended from Poseidon. In Homer’s tale, they consume many of Odysseus’s men and lay waste to 11 of their 12 ships by hurling giant boulders at them. The film sees the Laestrygonians reimagined as gargantuan armored knights who trap Odysseus’s men in cages formed by manipulating the forest woods, destroying two of his three ships in the process.
Phaeacians & Lotus-Eaters
Naturally, Nolan had to make some cuts to trim a 600-page book into a 3-hour film, and thus chose to nix Odysseus and his crew’s time on Scheria with the Phaeacians, who are known for their impressive ships. On Scheria, Princess Nausicaa guides Odysseus to King Alcinous and Queen Arete, who agree to transport him to Ithaca on one of their mighty ships after he regales them with stories of the Trojan War. Odysseus and his men also land on an island of lotus-eaters, where his soldiers consume the lotus and subsequently stop caring about returning home, before Odysseus forces them back on their ships. This episode is missing from Nolan’s film as well. Instead, the filmmaker has Calypso (Charlize Theron) feed Odysseus the lotus so he forgets about wanting to return home.
Cyclops
Odysseus’s wittiest ploy in Homer’s tale concerns him and his men’s escape from the clutches of Polyphemus, the giant cyclops (and son of Poseidon). First, Odysseus tells the cyclops his name is “Nobody,” so when they ply him with wine and then blind him with a sharpened stake, he cries out to his concerned neighbors who hear his wails of pain, “Nobody is hurting me!” Then, Odysseus and his fellow soldiers sneak out of the cyclops’ cave by fastening themselves to the bottom of sheep, since the cyclops rubs the tops of his flock as they leave the cave. The “nobody” joke is missing from Nolan’s film, as is the plying with wine and the tying-to-sheep gambit; rather, Odysseus and his men escape the cave after blinding the cyclops by wearing shrubbery on their backs.
Sex
The Accents
Every character in Nolan’s film not only has an American accent but does little to adjust their tone of voice. It’s especially jarring in the cases of Benny Safdie’s ruthless warrior Agamemnon, since Safdie doesn’t exactly have the most imposing of voices (the film also goes through great pains to avoid showing Safdie’s face), and Jon Bernthal’s Menelaus, king of Sparta, who sounds just like, well, streetwise Jon Bernthal. Having every actor affect a Greek accent would be a bit much, so perhaps the British-accent route, a la “I, Claudius,” would prove less distracting.
The Gods
The Disguise
The back half of Homer’s tale sees Odysseus spending a lot of time wandering around Ithaca, embedding with the suitors and gathering intel on who remains loyal to him whilst disguised as a wrinkled old beggar, courtesy of Athena. Nolan’s film does away with the wrinkled-old-man ruse, instead having Odysseus shield his bruised-and-battered face with the hood of his cloak.
Ambush
In Homer’s “Odyssey,” Penelope’s suitors, led by Antinous, lay a trap for Telemachus — who’s sailed off to find word of his missing father — waiting in a vessel at the island of Asteris and ready to attack. Athena warns Telemachus of the assassination attempt, allowing him to bypass the strait and evade the suitors. Nolan’s film has Telemachus and his trusted advisor, Mentor (Ryan Hurst), ambushed by the suitors at a temple dedicated to Apollo. Mentor is killed, but Telemachus narrowly escapes with his life thanks to Odysseus, who lays waste to the suitors in beggar garb. Antinous, meanwhile, has remained in Ithaca.
Laertes
The single biggest character omitted from Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey” is Laertes, Odysseus’s aged father and the former king of Ithaca. Laertes, a once heroic warrior, is the one Penelope is weaving that shroud for that she undoes every night, hoodwinking her suitors. Consumed with grief over his son’s 20-year absence — the same grief that claimed the life of his wife (and Odysseus’ mother) Anticlea — he’s abandoned the palace of Ithaca and retired to his farm, withering away while awaiting Odysseus’ return. Odysseus’ reunion with Laertes on the farm is one of the most emotional scenes in the book, as well as a troubling example of Odysseus’s gaslighting fetish, as he torments his father by posing as a stranger before revealing his true identity. Thanks to the powers of Athena, Laertes joins Odysseus in battle against the revenge-seeking families of the slain suitors, killing Eupeithes, the father of Antinous.
Slaying the Suitors
In Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey,” after stringing his bow and firing an arrow through a line of axes, Odysseus single-handedly takes on the suitors, vanquishing one after another and sustaining near-fatal wounds in the process. Telemachus’ lone contribution is killing Melanthius, the traitorous Ithacan farmhand, thus preventing him from continuing to arm the suitors. The slave women are spared, and, after witnessing Odysseus’ bravery, many of the suitors stop fighting and bend the knee to their rightful king. Homer’s version is much more brutal and boasts a far more heroic Telemachus, who fights alongside his father against the suitors, with the duo (and two loyal servants, aided by Athena) killing every last one of the bastards. Then, Telemachus and Odysseus force the slave women who’d slept with the suitors to clean the blood off the floors before they’re hanged. As for Melanthius? His death is the most gruesome of all: he is first bound, then has his ears, nose, hands, feet and genitals chopped off. Ouch.
The Ending
Nolan’s film ends with Penelope immediately embracing a heavily wounded Odysseus after his suitors’ battle royale, Telemachus crowned king, and Odysseus and Penelope sailing off into the sunset, having been forced into exile after the vengeful war hero sent so many Ithacan suitors to Hades. Homer’s poem has wise Penelope test Odysseus by requesting that he move their bed. Odysseus tells her that he’d carved the bed out of an olive tree and it cannot be moved (correct answer!) and the two lovingly embrace. Then, the families of the slain suitors assemble and vow revenge, clashing with Odysseus, Telemachus, Laertes and the loyal servants — only to have Athena intervene and abruptly put a stop to the fighting.