My thoughts on The Odyssey (by Christopher Nolan)!!
Ever since the movie came out, my expectations before watching it were very low. I had heard all sorts of different opinions on it, and I imagined it to be a huge flop. Now… I did enjoy the movie, it was overall a good one, but there are a few things that I’m not happy with. Of course, I know it was simply a movie adaptation, not an accurate documentary, so I wasn’t expecting it to be 100% true to the original poem, though, I still feel like some crucial elements were missing.
For starters, I think that the religious aspect was not impactful enough in the movie. Athena was simply reduced to Odysseus’ conscience, Hermes was non-existent in the movie, even though he was a very impactful figure in the original story (he tells Calypso to let Odysseus go because his destiny is to come back home, and he also gives him a magic herb that saves him from Circe), and again, when Odysseus has his encounter with the dead and Tiresias tells him “The gods say your men won't make it, that only you will return.”, Odysseus replies saying “and then I challenge the gods”, well that is extremely blasphemous for a man that lived in Ancient Greece, even more because Odysseus knew what would’ve happened if he really did challenge the gods.
Plus, the whole concept of hybris is basically omitted in the movie, and so is Odysseus’ cleverness (the whole “nobody” thing with Polyphemus and so on -> which, btw, also shows his pride, since just before leaving, in the poem, he tells the cyclops his real name). I did like the scene in Hades, I liked how the underworld and the dead were depicted, and I also enjoyed the scenery, the atmosphere and the soundtrack.
okay so now talk about what the movie actually is instead of just what you thought it was gonna be
I can take whatever put it all over my body that's fashion
It was her.
I like The Odyssey well enough, but I love movies. And it's zero percent surprising that Tumblr would love Emily Wilson's LBR piece, because it's just premiere posting. Her prose fucking crushes, so many lines are absolutely killer. But I do just need to mention that it's really not film criticism. It's hardly speaking to or about the movie at all, and when it is, it's predominantly her positing that because she is not interested in what it's saying, then it's not saying anything.
I mean if you just want to take, "There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible." This line makes me laugh every time I see it, it rules. And it has nothing to do with Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026).
Presumably it's coming from the same complaint well as the majority of Wilson's piece: that while the Homeric poem is a celebration of fucking around and feasting, this movie is not. But in just saying, "it's not this" and nothing more, she's not discussing or even acknowledging how sex and food are actually used in this retelling. Both are tied together in what has been widely praised among audiences as one of the most indelible sequences: Samantha Morton's scene as the witch Circe. In it, the threat of sexual violence and act of eating are linked in a commentary on warmongering rapaciousness writ large, as a part of Nolan's intently laid out thesis of the Trojan horse as a kind of atomic bomb xenia violation whose nuclear winter the whole Mediterranean is now living under. And yes the food does look horrible, because it's horror food! It's difficult to describe in words, but it's like the stew Odysseus's men are eating is turning into gristly tentacles in their mouths, the sounds of their eating ghastly and so disgusting, while Morton transforms them through....something I will not even try to describe, I've just never seen anything quite like it onscreen. Largely practical effects too, astonishing.
Not a bit of that is in that line, of course. Great line, but isn't about the movie, it's about the author.
And honestly, the author is a bit out on a limb with much of how she has actually interpreted The Odyssey (film) itself, must also be said! And not just by me, or by film critics naturally, but also other classics scholars:
I mean when early on she summarily defined the work of cinema as "light and noise" and moved on, it was pretty clear that Wilson just doesn't have a ton of respect or feeling for epic scale movies in general. Which is fine! Everyone has types of art that they don't jibe with. But you don't go to the person who's not keen on dance for a good assessment of the new ballet, negative or positive.
And if one of the things someone claims about a movie is that casting actors of color flattened all of those roles into the stereotypical "Black best friend," but not by anything that can be seen in the script or their performances, so seemingly suggesting 'we', to use her skeptical punctuation motif, should read them that way merely because they aren't white, worth a pause to consider that while haterism can be a rush to read (or write), it can also mask any number of deeply iffy assertions that could definitely stand to be questioned!
Okay truly I posted this going, Tom Holland’s non-alcoholic beer me strength…"wading in"..., but have gotten such an engaged response! People interested in a discussion about what good film criticism can do and is for is so exciting and heartening for me! I am certainly not a professional film critic, but I love reading and listening to it, because as you may have heard, I love movies.
If you want just like, One Neat Trick to having much more fun and interesting conversations about art with your friends, I'd say a great thing is to try to avoid value judgments without reasoning. That's what that same oft-quoted section of Emily Wilson's piece is doing, where after non-specifically mentioning "Nolan's trademark jumps and twists" in the opening paragraph, the only other comment she makes on The Odyssey's structure in 4000 words, and again, for a Christopher Nolan movie, is “its narrative structure is gimmicky.” Okay! What is the narrative structure that you found gimmicky? And gimmicky how, or why? Actually getting into what the structure is and what you thought the effect of that was on the story and the viewer is going to be so much more rewarding for everyone, because the people who felt the same way (including the person making the argument!) are gaining insights into why this element didn't work for them, and the people who did not feel the same way can now see where you're coming from, and identify where they're responding to the same filmmaking choices differently.
Because value judgement without reasoning is pretty prescriptivist at the end of the day. Good criticism shouldn’t be telling you what to think, it should be giving you more to think about.
Anyway, some real thoughtful stuff on this post, and I also want to highlight the reply below from @fursasaida, who was making a sort of argument about arguments using the Calypso scenes, if you’re interested in a great example of how to critique a film adaptation on it’s own terms!
