The Odyssey

5 outta 5

Director Christopher Nolan bounces around genres and his films are unique and compelling. Now his adaptation of the epic Greek poem The Odyssey is appropriately epic. This is still a uniquely Nolan movie except set in ancient times and also has fantasy and horror elements. The Odyssey is a cool way to make an ancient story seem like something new and vital. It is a series of adventures and bad luck turns as fate repeatedly kicks Odysseus in the face while he tries to make it back home. Nolan pulls the viewer into a world of magic and gods and makes it feel real.

In ancient Greece, Odysseus (Matt Damon) is a king and warrior who has led men against the city of Troy for 10 years of battle and stalemates. Eventually, he defeated Troy with trickery involving a wooden horse and hiding his men inside and they raided the city. Now on his way home, Odysseus and his men face a perilous journey confronting magic and monsters, like a giant cyclops or siren calls or dead folks coming back to haunt them. Back at Odysseus’ kingdom of Ithaca, his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), has suitors overrunning her home, all wanting to be her husband. This displeases Odysseus and Penelope’s son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), who confronts the meanest suitor, Antinous (Robert Pattinson). Telemachus is convinced his dad will return, and there will be carnage when Odysseus takes on all these suitors taking up space in his house.

There are a few Nolan-isms throughout Odyssey. The scene with the soldiers hiding out in the wooden horse and they’re struggling to stay alive is similar to Dunkirk where the soldiers are hiding out in a destroyed boat. There is a non-linear structure as Nolan often does, comprised of flashbacks of Odysseus’ journey while Telemachus and Penelope fret about the various suitors. Also the scale of the action and the crunchy suddenness of the violence is very much like Nolan films. There is also a lot of deception and half-truths, which is also a staple of Nolan movies. He doesn’t make the film dialogue sound “ancient”, with Telemachus repeatedly referring to his “dad” and a couple of f-bombs that sounds like modern language. Which is fine, a bunch of “thees” and “thous” wouldn’t suddenly make the film any more profound.

What’s new for Nolan, aside from a few scenes of Scarecrow in Batman Begins, is the sense of horror. Like when the giant cyclops picks up a random soldier and then starts to eat them as the soldier changes from yelling person to snack. There is a sense of menace as the men realized they’re trapped in a cave with a hungry monster. Another horrific bit is when Odysseus is confronted by the dead soldiers who are really ticked they died under his command. When Odysseus’ men are turned into pigs Odysseus has a slow, creeping realization of what is going on. Samantha Morton as Circe, the magical lady turning the men into pigs, is very weird and freaky, especially when she is “molding” the human men into swine. The scene when the men raid Troy shows a savage and ugly side of war, and there is a great twist involving Athena (Zendaya) and a woman from Troy who haunts Odysseus’ memories. Zendaya just has to look mysterious and ethereal and she is very good at that.

Damon as Odysseus is once again playing a very smart man trying to make his way home. He does determined really well, and there’s a lot of times where it seems like he has been overcome by fate but he finds a way out of the situation. There is a sense he is weary and being punished by his years of constant war. Holland as the son has to believe that his father is coming back, even though he’s been gone 20 years. He also gets in a lot of moments where he is glaring at the suitors who refuse to leave the house. As the wife dealing with the suitors, Penelope says while men can do what they want, women have to do what they can, which is why she is putting up with the gaggle of suitor jerks. She weaves a tapestry and when the tapestry is finished she has to choose a suitor, but she keeps unweaving the tapestry every night so she can delay the choice. There is a bit when Penelope has reunited with Odysseus in disguise and even if he doesn’t say it is him, she can sense it is him. As the biggest, meanest suitor, Pattinson gets to leer and eat up all the food and generally be a jerk towards Telemachus. All of the suitors are just terrible, even being mean towards blind old men and dogs, so when Odysseus returns to unleash a can of holy whup ass, it feels cathartic.

The Odyssey is a fittingly epic film for an epic ancient tale. It features a lot of Nolan’s enjoyable tricks and a few new tonal twists that make it different from his other films. It is a long journey but earned with great visuals and dramatic payoffs.