How does one write a mere 600 words about a film like The Odyssey?
A movie that’s well nigh three hours long, rife with dazzling visuals and a larger-than-life cast featuring a dozen major stars. A movie helmed by a man who may now be the world’s most bankable director — but who has herein made controversial changes in one of literature’s oldest and greatest sagas. In fact, it’s a tale that’s already been adapted in at least a dozen earlier movies, several of them quite worthwhile.
Well, I suppose one starts by insisting that Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey is very good — indeed, it’s very, very good.
But it isn’t perfect.
Based on Homer’s ancient Greek epic, the tale focuses on Odysseus, Ithacan king and hero of the Trojan War, as he fights his way home through a dizzying array of monsters, mistakes, stormy seas, temptations and supernatural hostility; and all the while, his wife waits for years, unsure if he is even alive — while the estate is devoured by scumbag suitors seeking the throne.
Though Robert Pattinson didn’t quite do it for me as chief scumbag Antinous, most of the cast is sensational. Matt Damon’s Odysseus — a role he calls his most physically challenging — really deserves this year’s Best Actor.
But Tom Holland — as the hero’s son, Telemachus — is almost the best thing in this picture; we literally watch him grow up through the story. His teary-eyed scene with the beggar and dog constitutes, for me, the movie’s strongest moment; in particular, it highlights the way Nolan — for all the impressive action, effects and real-life authenticity — again and again simply nails the human element, the timeless emotional undertow of Homer’s beloved classic.
Cast-wise, I was also bowled over by Charlize Theron, whose nymph Calypso truly makes us believe that Odysseus could be seduced by her proffered dream of private peace and love. At age 50, Theron is still so mesmerizing that I don’t know why they didn’t just cast her as Helen of Troy.
Speaking of which: The actual casting of talented Oscar-winner Lupita Nyong’o as “the face that launched a thousand ships” was one of the controversies — along with trans actor Elliot Page (formerly Ellen) as Sinon, a minor character borrowed from Virgil’s later Aeneid.
And indeed, the multicultural casting — perhaps mindful of new quotas for any film hoping to get Oscar nominations — is just one aspect of the film that can make it feel too woke and modern. There’s some very non-Homeric feminism (Samantha Morton’s Circe wasn’t cutting it for me), and too much handheld camerawork — plus awkward contemporary language (the F-bomb, for instance — and I’m pretty sure I heard at least one “dude”). It’s frankly distracting; I can’t imagine “Mom” or “Dad” ever crossing Homer’s lips.
And despite the strong performances — John Leguizamo is also terrific, along with Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Zendaya as Athena — one has to wonder why they couldn’t hire at least a couple of actual Greeks. (Apparently, multiculturalism only goes so far.)
But I’ve now devoted too much space to these issues. Because, as my movie-fan friend and I observed right afterward, The Odyssey is so good, so absorbing, so brilliantly filmed with its practical effects and very little CGI — that all these concerns simply fade into the background when the credits start to roll.
Instead, you might hear yourself say, “I think I’d like to see that again — and maybe read the book.”
I’m already planning on both.
