The Odyssey (Christopher Nolan, 2026)

Long day's journey into night

(Warning: story and plot twists of the movie-- and the three thousand year old epic poem the movie is based on-- discussed in explicit detail!)

First things first: Got no problem with Lupita Nyong'o's Helen/Clytemnestra or Elliot Page's Sinon (not Achilles as conservative pundits had complained about early on); Helen's fierce bitterness about being pawn and property to Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) and Sinon's hauntingly solemn reproaches to Odysseus for using him as bait are rare bright spots in the movie. 

I do have problems with Matt Damon as Odysseus. 

Been noted that Homer's opening line sums up our first impression of the man, sets the emotional tone of the rest of the epic, is hence the most difficult to translate. Robert Fitzgerald's lyrically elevated take literally takes flight: "Sing in me, Muse, and through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending"

Robert Fagles, whose translation I first read, is a bit more grounded: "Sing to me of the Man, Muse, of the man of many twists and turns"

Emily Wilson in the latest English translation (the first ever done of the complete poem by a woman, in English) is blunt: "Tell me about a complicated man"

Tell me, reading all those differing versions-- "skilled in all ways" "of many twists and turns" "complicated"-- does the thought of Matt Damon ever once pop up? 

More, recalling the few scenes between Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and Odysseus-- does tall stately Hathaway look in any way like she'd fall for stumpy Damon, who has about as much sex appeal as a dachshund? 

I'm being cruel, I take that back. Damon is handsome, physically fit (far fitter than I am, I'll admit), and has plenty of appeal, the kind you find in a faithful hound, that puppy dog that follows you everywhere tail wagging; I can imagine women loving him because they can't imagine him lying to them, much less dating other women behind their backs. Later in the picture Eurylochus (Himesh Patel) accuses Odysseus of being aware of Charybdis and Scylla all along ("You knew!" he yells somewhat redundantly) and I had to laugh. How did Eurylochus realize Odysseus was holding back? Because one glance at Damon and you just know he's guilty of hiding something.

As that all-important first line sets the tone for Homer's epic so Damon and his performance sets the tone for the rest of Nolan's production: aside from the fact that it follows Homer's narrative-- a tale within a tale within a, functioning like a story that starts in media res then swings back and forth in time in typical Nolan fashion (only Nolan likely didn't pluck the idea of intricately nested narratives out of thin air, he got it from Homer) this is basically a straightforward meat and potatoes adaptation, with a touch of Virgil's The Aeneid-- Odysseus more as ruthless strategist than resourceful hero. 

Nolan actually does well for most of the running time-- he whips things along at a fair clip, includes most of the important incidents, relies on a lot of analog effects-- a giant puppet for Polyphemus, an ingenious method to simulate Charybdis (he does use CGI to polish said effects; his publicity presents him as a purist but he's careful to demand a budget that can afford digital fixes). He plays Matt Damon fair with us, striking a deal where we sit still for three hours and he in turn delivers the best Odyssey $250 million can buy.

In the grand tradition of biblical epics you spot the occasional celebrity cameo (is that...John Leguizamo? And Pattinson? And... Tom Holland! Charlize Theron... Samantha Morton... Zendaya... does Jason Bourne get to beat up The Batman?!)-- have to admit Cecil B DeNolan puts on a good show. 

Need to mention that Odysseus' dog Argos is a poorly animated puppet. Not that I mind puppetry much-- it has its charms-- but more than realism the marionette must deliver a performance, and this one was so inexpressive Nolan had to cut to a flashback of the dog as a puppy to try wring a few more tears from the audience. I don't think the flashback helps. 

Disappointed there are few gods, with some of the appearances debatable-- as I argued in Troy the gods here function as the higher and lower sentiments of people, their id and superego in effect; if you want a little more psychology out of your Homer, you could do worse than listen to what the gods have to say. 

Plus the gods play a to my mind more important function: they're the comic relief, the running commentary, the above-the-fray eyes one needs to take a break from the ground-level action and appreciate the long view. Nolan's three hours, I submit, would pass by more swiftly if Hermes were to pop in, or Zeus throw a tantrum (a literal one of the Olivier school, not metaphorical thunder and lightning). 

Nolan inserts an agenda: that of a great man with a secret guilt, a hidden sin he has to contend with before the movie is through with him-- we saw this in Oppenheimer and as far back as Memento-- and that's a fair objective; filmmakers often have a subject they like to play variations on, trying to hone their thesis, and The Odyssey-- whose original Odysseus is a relatively simpler man, unreflective enough that he feels no guilt for Troy but feels remorse for each member of his fallen crew-- is large enough and sturdy enough a vessel to accommodate such a reading. 

My problem is I don't feel Nolan pulls it off. We need a man able to feel hubris, because he's so devious, because he pulls off tricks and ploys and delights in them, sometimes to his downfall (see the aftermath of his encounter with Polyphemus). Damon doesn't look as if he has the confidence to bluff, much less manipulate anyone into anything, doesn't look like he can ascend high enough to convincingly earn himself any amount of hubris; if he's going to undergo some kind of downfall it's not going to be much of a drop. 

While we're talking about Homer's nested narratives and Nolan's insertions might as well insert my problems with Polyphemus. Right after saying Nolan isn't wrong to put his own spin on Homer I'm going to submit that not having Polyphemus and Odysseus talk is a huge wasted opportunity, as we learn details grotesque and grotesquely endearing about both captor and captive. Folks like to point out that our hero keeps encountering examples of men and monsters who violate 'xenia' (what Nolan calls 'Zeus' Law,' or the law of hospitality); that's not entirely true with Homer's Polyphemus who does possess a perverse sense of xenia, telling Odysseus he'll save him for last. Homer's Polyphemus is funny, in a crudely obscene way, and tender, at least to the giant rams he's herding; Odysseus in turn is just as funny, passing himself off as 'Nobody' and yes hubristic, as he outsmarts himself because he can't resist taking credit. Forget straightforward people-chomping horror movies a la The Blob or Alien, think mutated horror-comedies like Evil Dead 2, where the hero exorcises his demon by chainsawing his arm off.

But okay-- not the sort of thing Nolan would do. But Homer did, and as a result (I submit) his poem has stayed popular for thousands of years. 

Nolan's notions of trauma and the horrors of war are weak tea and I don't mean blood and literal guts, tho Homer dishes up his share (again, see Polyphemus)-- when I think of a wartime atrocity and the protagonist's role in it one moment that comes to mind is the Tafas massacre in David Lean's Lawrence of Arabia-- a tasteful minimum of blood, but the real power of that sequence is the image of the retreating Turkish army, and the vast widescreen desert offering them no refuge. Cut to a gigantic closeup of Peter O'Toole as Lawrence eyes wide and staring, pulled in different directions by different kinds of impulses: rage at what the Turks had done, thirst to take revenge, and his own private sense of horror at the bloodlust welling up his throat. 

Now imagine Mr. Damon decked out in white robes in that scene, with Mr. Nolan behind the camera.

I'd even call into question Nolan's insistence that we watch the movie not just in IMAX but 70 mm IMAX, to 'immerse ourselves in the experience'-- it's a big canvas but Nolan keeps the action safely in screen's center so IMAX or not, 70 mm or 35 mm or widescreen TV or cellphone or not, the image-- or the part of the image Nolan considers crucial to the story-- remains readily visible. He insists on the very best format but wastes said format on conventional filmmaking that will fit anywhere. He shrinks from the kind of recklessness Kurosawa demonstrated in The Hidden Fortress, where Tohoscope reveals the massive scale of Akizuki Castle, and the extra wide frame emphasizes the length of the dueling spears at film's climax; the tension crafted by Leone, standing three mysterious gunfighters in the middle of a lonely train station in the wordless 15-minute opening of Once Upon a Time in the West; most startling of all the cat-and-mouse game Camille and Paul play padding through the rooms and doorways and sofa and bed, fully clothed and naked, of their Roman apartment in Godard's Les Mepris (an incidentally far superior far more moving adaptation of The Odyssey in my opinion-- not the least because its subtext is Godard's own disintegrating marriage to his wife and muse Anna Karina). 

Two more points and I'm done: I wonder about Mr. Nolan's emphasis on xenia, its practice and violation. In his movie Odysseus is punished-- or punishes himself-- for breaking xenia by having the Trojans take his horse into their city where the soldiers inside the horse can unlock the gates and plunder and kill. He feels remorse for this, as any proper Nolan-style 'great man' protagonist would and should. 

But-- and I could be wrong, could have missed some detail or misunderstood some aspect of ancient Greek culture-- was xenia violated? The horse wasn't meant for the Trojans but for Athena, to beg her for safe passage home; the Trojans merely decided (in a bit of clever reverse psychology) to steal the horse and bring it into their city, win themselves Athena's favor instead. 

So the Trojans were screwed over by a felony they committed, where the horse happened to hide a dozen Greek soldiers; where's the breaking of xenia? And if that violation of ethics didn't happen, why were Odysseus and his men punished? More, if Odysseus feels so bad about the massacre, why does he follow up by massacring the visitors in his own home? I submit Homer's characters, being simpler, also made more sense; if Nolan felt he could shoehorn a more elaborate motive into his Odysseus without bothering to come up with a plausible explanation-- well I'd call that his hubris talking. 

That final massacre by the way-- we build up to it, we see Odysseus suffering and losing his men one by one, we see Penelope and Telemachus struggle to maintain their dignity and integrity in a rising tide of abuse (Nolan conveniently downplaying the fact that Odysseus in the meantime fooled around first with Circe then Calypso, or that Calypso voices an eloquent complaint-- not heard in the film-- about the double standard between men and women when it came to adultery), we badly want to see the suitors get their comeuppance. And Nolan to his credit does pull off a scene where Odysseus pretends to struggle with the bow and Penelope averts her face in weary disappointment, and her husband-- seeing her turn away and quickly stringing the bow and plucking it-- lets loose a low lovely chord, easily the most emotionally resonant moment in the movie. 

And then everything falls apart. Shaky handheld 70 mm IMAX shots connected by incoherent editing; a lot of action you can't follow because Nolan-- from the Dark Knight trilogy to Inception to Tenet to this picture-- has shown again and again he can't shoot and edit hand-to-hand combat worth a damn. Odysseus wandered thirty years but was at least granted a happy end, albeit a little different from Homer's; I sit through three hours of mid storytelling to be rewarded the visual equivalent of hamburger. I stuck to my end of the deal, sat still for a hundred and eighty minutes; Nolan could at least have the decency to dip into the $100 to $150 million he stands to earn from The Odyssey's enormous boxoffice (some $700 million and counting) and give me my thirty dollars back.