If you trace my moves across the US and the globe, they would resemble those of Odysseus in scope and frequency. Interestingly, Odysseus and I have both visited Sicily and Malta.

I have seen the wine dark sea at sunset near Polyphemus’s home, crossed the strait that’s home to Scylla and Charybdis, and visited ancient Greek ruins along Sicily’s shores. 

The island of Gozo—the supposed home to Calypso—remains a favorite day trip on my Maltese holiday. 

I fell in love with Greek mythology in 8th grade reading Edith Hamilton’s classic book on the subject—one of the few books I still have from that period. 

I first read the Odyssey in high school. Yes, the whole thing. Although I do wonder now if some of the sex scenes were excerpted from the textbook version we read. 

That knowledge served me well in my medieval history studies. I even considered classics as a possible focus for my prelim exams. And, of course, Homer was often one of the first topics we covered in the Western Civ classes I TAed. 

And, yet, I was not looking forward to watching Christopher Nolan’s new film adaptation. To me, the Odyssey is one of the well-worn Greek myths that have frequently transferred to film badly. While I loved his Batman films, I am not a Nolan stan. As I have moved around the world, I have lost patience with the great books of the Western canon and fallen in love with those of Asia instead. 

Did I like the film?

Yes, of course, I loved the film! Why else would I spend the better part of an afternoon and almost 3000 words? Do you think I do that for films and books I don’t like? No, I do not.

My spoiler-free review is that the Odyssey demonstrates the power of the human imagination to tell a story that is visually grand in scale and emotionally powerful in its subtle details. The score is yet another Academy award-winning effort by Ludwig Göransson. I left the theater knowing that I had seen one of this year’s best films. 

Professor Emily Wilson had other thoughts. While I agree with many of her points, including about the concept of xenia and the treatment of women characters, I also think that the Odyssey of Homer and of Nolan are very different cinematic universes. She is holding him to Homer, and he pulls from many other sources including the Illiad, the Aeneid, and even the Agamemnon. It’s a mish mash of sources that is sure to irritate even the most sympathetic Classicist critic. But if he’s going to pull from outside Homer, then, as others have suggested, he might want to try Trojan Women, which is an excellent play. 

Obviously, here be spoilers for Nolan’s treatment of the Odyssey. 

Does size really matter?

If you’re Christopher Nolan, and you’ve filmed an epic on 70mm IMAX film, then yes, size does matter. A big sword-and-sandals epic deserves a big screen format. 

But, I chose a different path. First, I had been hearing that the 70mm IMAX projectors had been overheating. I didn’t want to make the hour-long bus odyssey to King of Prussia and have the film not show. Second, I had heard the sound was unbearably loud. 

So, I chose to go to a local theatre instead. I hoped to make the showing at the Philadelphia Film Center, set off on foot, passing many obstacles along the way, but arrived just after showtime. After checking bus and theatre schedules, I ended up at the Landmark Ritz Five with its iconic, popcorn-free bathroom hand dryer. 

I’m so glad I did. First, because the sound experience did not damage my eardrums. I wore my wired earphones instead. Second, because the theatre was not crowded. 

If I have one criticism of Nolan’s decision to use 70mm IMAX, it’s that his choice means that smaller independent theaters might not benefit as much from the film’s release. Philly is home to some incredible small theatres that feature independent films. We invented the steady cam for Rocky here, and as a film culture, we love the underdogs. But, let’s face it, Nolan is no longer an underdog. If he ever was. 

I am once again asking you to read poems on audiobook

I know everyone hates Amazon because it’s the big, bad corporate surveillance machine, but if you want to listen to the audiobook version of Emily Wilson’s translation, you can only listen on Audible. Unfortunately, Audible Exclusives are not available on Libby. However, the Free Library of Philadelphia does have the ebook. There’s a 25-week wait, so hopefully, the librarians will order more copies. You can also order the paperback or hardcover from Norton. It doesn’t matter what format you choose. Just read, damn it. 

Claire Danes narrates the audiobook, which I found to be an intriguing choice. A woman reading a translation by a woman really leans into the feminine vibe of the story. I was unsure how she would handle Odysseus’ first person narration, but Danes rises to that challenge well. 

I chose to listen to the translator’s note and the story, but skipped the 3-hour introduction before watching the film. 

I have since finished the introduction, and I’m glad I did. Wilson dispels common myths and provides much needed historical context to the epic. 

I found her discussion of xenia (Zeus’ law) particularly helpful. For me, Nolan’s interpretation is too prescriptive and legalistic. Wilson provides a lens that shows how xenia was about building relationships, including family ties. Yes, the host had obligations, but so did the guest. There’s a give-and-take, a negotiation that takes place throughout the text. On Instagram, Shiv Reddy drew parallels to the Hindu concept of atithi devo bhava, which I found more aligned with the ancient norms of hospitality in the epic. 

In the film, xenia seems reduced to an ancient version of the Golden rule: do unto others as they would do unto you. It’s clearly meant as a critique of the way governments (especially my own American government) is demonizing strangers and tossing them aside. And while I agree with Nolan’s point, the decision to impose a Christian framework on that concept feels egregious and almost suffocating in its frequent invocations.

Odysseus’ women

Wilson also discusses the role of women in the epic. At one point, some people thought that Homer was a woman because of how sympathetically the poem treats the women (including the goddesses). While Wilson dismisses this claim for lack of evidence, she does argue that some of the epic’s misogynistic reputation is the result of centuries of translators imposing their own misogyny on the characters, rather than something native to the text. 

Let’s be honest. Nolan has never been good with women characters. He tried hard with the Odyssey, and the women give some of the best performances. You can see him soften some aspects of the epic that have always been shocking. For example, the brutal murder of the slave women after the slaughter of the suitors shows how precarious their lives were. Odysseus and Telemachus enact harsh retribution on these women who have few choices and little agency in their own lives. Nolan decided to cut that scene as it was “too misogynistic,” thus missing the point: Odysseus brings his war crimes home. 

Unfortunately, Nolan falls into his own misogynistic traps. With the notable exception of Penelope, women seem to function only as witches or sexy temptresses in his imagination. 

Although I loved Samantha Morton as Circe, I was frustrated that she was reduced to a woman seeking revenge after trauma inflicted upon her by men just like Odysseus and his crew. In the poem, Odysseus stays with her, sleeps with her, and (in some tellings) fathers children with her. For Nolan, Circe and Calypso really only exist to push the story along and teach Odysseus a lesson. 

Athena’s depiction is perhaps the most disappointing. In the poem, Athena is Odysseus‘ guide and Telemachus’ Mentor, intervening on their behalf on multiple occasions. She is not passive, but rather an active participant guiding the story. She provides the deus ex machina that resolves the final battle in the poem. 

Yet in Nolan‘s retelling, he fridges Athena. The murderous reveal toward the end of the film could lead one to argue that Nolan killed Athena’s priestess only so that Odysseus had an outlet for his grief and guilt. Athena appears only in the moments when events trigger Odysseus’ PTSD from the war. She becomes little more than a hallucination, a way for his mind to work through his own trauma and war criminal behavior. 

Nolan’s god complex

If you’ve seen Oppenheimer, you know that Oppenheimer’s famous quote from the Bhagavad Gita features prominently in the film. The Odyssey is filled with gods: Athena, Zeus, Poseidon, and Hermes to name a few. Not to mention Calypso and Circe. 

Nolan seems to have a strong desire for the presence of God, and yet he struggles to render divinity. He is not alone in that challenge with this tale. Modern filmmakers often struggle with how to depict divine intervention in the story that is understood but not often seen. Poseidon retaliates for the blinding of Polyphemus, but we don’t physically see him. Instead, we see the storm and the waves obliterating the boat. Divinity as an invisible hand feels much more aligned with Christian theology than ancient religious beliefs. Yet, in our modern cinematic lexicon, Loki and Thor exist alongside humans without losing their divinity. 

That invisibility makes Athena’s appearance even more baffling. For the gods cannot be so angry as to destroy his ship while at the same time little more than a figment of Odysseus’ traumatized brain. Yet, the tendency among audience members to read Athena only as a manifestation of Odysseus’ guilt reflects our own relationship to guilt in an American Christian context. That interpretation feels too one-dimensional. For while there’s much to criticize in Nolan’s interpretation of the goddess, I do give him credit for the emotional weight Athena carries in her brief appearances. Zendaya is powerful in her brief screentime. 

Here be monsters 

I want you to imagine for just a moment that our civilization is wiped out, and we enter what later historians call a “dark” age. Then, imagine that the only book that survives is Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and the only films that survive are the MCU. How will people in the future talk about how we understand the world if that’s the only representation of our time that survives? 

When modern audiences and readers look back on the ancient past, we too often see the way in which ancient storytellers grapple with the world they do not understand as a literal interpretation of their beliefs. What does it mean that we sometimes assign a depiction of monsters as proof that ancient people believed there were actual monsters and were less sophisticated in the way they imagined the world? Were their monsters real, or were they metaphors for challenges that Greeks faced as they began to colonize the Mediterranean? 

In one of the most famous scenes in the epic, Odysseus lands on the island of the Cyclopes. We understand that location to be modern day Sicily. In the eighth century, the Greeks were beginning to colonize that area. So it makes sense that they would depict the inhabitants of that region as human yet monstrous. It’s a way for them to reconcile their attitudes towards colonization with the destruction of another person’s home. After all, if the Cyclops is a monster, then Odysseus must be justified in his behavior.

In the poem, Polyphemus and Odysseus banter back and forth. The famous “nobody is killing me” pun is an example of Odysseus’ cleverness and cunning in the face of an unknown adversary. Much in the same way Frankenstein’s creature engages with ideas, Polyphemus does, too. 

I missed those witty dialogues. For me those dialogues raise the question: is Odysseus the villain in the story? On one level, Nolan seems to think so. Odysseus violates Zeus’s law with the Trojan horse, rapes and pillages across the ocean, and slaughters guests in his own home. Surely, we are not meant to understand this is a good thing. Right? 

The end of the world and the beginning of Western civilization  

Nolan’s ending demonstrates all too well the challenges he has with divinity. In the singular moment where Athena literally and physically intervenes during yet another battle, Nolan demures. He shies away from the harsh lesson on the inevitability of war and Odysseus’ responsibility for bringing that war home with him. Odysseus is saved only by the power of Athena, not through his own cunning. 

I had to rewind the audiobook and relisten to that section because it ends so abruptly. That ending forced me to wrestle with the truth that Odysseus has failed. He is no better off at the end of the poem than when it began. He remains a complicated man who uses violence to solve his problems. Yes, he is a hero, but he’s a hero with blood on his hands. 

Nolan replaces that scene with a grandiose, triumphal boat journey “into the West.” Odysseus returns after 20 years only to run away again. It’s a tidy (dare I say rushed) happy ending for a complicated story about a complicated man. 

In the poem, Odysseus explains to Penelope his need to journey beyond Ithaca, wrestling with the weight and obligation of leadership in times of war. He is going beyond the shores of Ithaca and his known world to honor the dead he could not bury, to fulfill a promise to his men made while he was in Hades. That journey is in the future and off stage. We never get that resolution. Does he take that journey? We don’t know. That’s another tale for another time. 

To insert the ridiculous, self-referential Bronze Age conversation and have him journey into the West like one of Tolkien’s elves is unsatisfying. It’s clear that this very blunt language is meant to reflect Nolan‘s own anxieties about the death of reading and our allegedly post-literate age. And yet he seems to simultaneously reject the monoculture of traditional western civilization. Nolan’s Odyssey is a multi-ethnic, multi-racial civilization where Jason Bourne sails into the sunset and Peter Parker is left in charge. Odysseus is passing the baton to Telemachus who is now ready to carry on his father’s legacy. I wish we’d been able to sit with the weight of that legacy in all its messiness. 

The Trojan horse of AI 

Nolan also rejects the post-humanist view of the technofascists who have trashed the film. In part, I think even they see this film itself as a response to rapid industrialization and adoption of artificial intelligence. He recently said that AI is a Trojan horse except that it’s clear, so everyone can see inside.

From Deadline:

“I think AI is a Trojan horse that everybody knows the Greeks are inside,” said Nolan on the Hugo Décrypte YouTube, adding: “It’s a transparent horse, it’s made of glass. Everybody can see what’s going on inside of there.”

From the Guardian:

“But I think the idea that it replaces human beings wholesale and human creativity, to me it’s a nonsense.” 

And if I’m being totally honest, that’s one of the main reasons I decided to go watch this movie. Over the last few years, I have leaned into the power of human creativity and rejected the dehumanization that tech companies seem hell bent on shoving down our throats. 

After all, to support an artist and director, the actors, and the entire production team that made a real movie on real film with real practical effects is the best way to signal to movie production companies that audiences want more real, human stories.