Directed by Christopher Nolan | Written by Nolan, based on Homer’s epic poem | 172 min | ▲▲▲▲ | In Cinemas
Filmmaker Christopher Nolan has called this 3000-year-old story a foundational text, and it’s certainly inspired his work in the past — or, at least, involves themes he’s interested in: The hero’s journey, homecomings, non-linear storytelling, and men separate from their loved ones. This story has been adapted in the past, as recently as last year with The Return starring Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus and Juliette Binoche as Penelope.
The hype around this project has a lot to do with Nolan. It was almost exactly three years ago that Nolan’s last movie was released in cinemas, Oppenheimer. In tandem with Barbie, that film made a lot more money than was expected, close to a billion dollars, and then went and won a raft of Oscars. Nolan’s one of few Hollywood filmmakers who has a rock star persona thanks to a beloved filmography over more than a quarter century. Movies like The Dark Knight, Memento, Inception, Interstellar, and Dunkirk. Those are movies that share a lot of common themes with The Odyssey.
A big deal has also been made about how The Odyssey was shot, entirely with IMAX cameras.
Nolan used the IMAX in some sequences in previous films, but this is the first time the entire movie has been made with this larger format. On the IMAX screen it seems just as vertical as it is horizontal, like a feature film on an enormous phone.
For those who don’t know, here’s the tale: King Odysseus of Ithaca (a whiskery Matt Damon) uses his cunning to end the Trojan War with a gift horse, which those Trojans neglect to look in its mouth.
His plan is then to return to his life in Greece, to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and son Telemachus (Tom Holland). To say his journey is a difficult one would be an understatement, it takes years. He faces all kinds of horrors, of both a supernatural and spiritual sort.
This while Penelope still holds on hope that Odysseus is alive and has to shake off persistent suitors, a group of men who show up at the palace every night to eat dinner. The rule of Zeus is very much in place — always be welcoming to strangers, they could be gods in disguise. But all these men relying on her hospitality, all they want is to become king. That includes the selfish, cowardly Antinous (Robert Pattinson, who if he wore a moustache, he would twirl it. He’s a very hissible villain.)
And while giants and a terrifying cyclops (Bill Irwin) feature prominently, Nolan does a good job managing a sense of realism. The gods he treats as though they walk amongst us, less of a group of toga-wearing folks sitting up on clouds and more just travellers and antagonists Odysseus and his men encounter. They offer him other opportunities to delay or maybe give up his journey home.
The sprawling cast includes Zendaya as the goddess Athena, who Odysseus sees in visions, Charlize Theron as Calypso, our own Elliot Page as a soldier, a veteran of the Trojan war, and Lupita N’Yong’o as Helen (as well as her sister, Clytemnestra), among many others who you’ll miss if you blink. Some surprising performances include Himesh Patel as Odysseus’s second in command, Samantha Morton, who is fantastic as Circe, and the always reliable John Leguizamo.
Whether you emotionally buy in to this or not depends on the leads, especially Damon as Odysseus. He plays the King as someone who feels responsible for the men in his charge, and carries a lot of guilt over what he did in the war. Hathaway as Penelope, she’s powerful, and unwavering, no matter who she’s talking to. The finale that involves them both is a showstopper — this is the rare film where the best part is the third act, by a long way.
The Odyssey can stand in the company of the best sword, sandal, and sorcery movies of recent years, though that’s maybe damning it with faint praise. Visually, more than once it reminded me of Ridley Scott’s ventures into those historical and fantastical genres — movies like Kingdom of Heaven, Gladiator, and even Legend.
As a visual epic, it astonishes: credit to lensmaster Hoyte van Hoytema, with a fantastic, percussive score from Ludwig Göransson. But true to the source material the movie is episodic, and some of those episodes are more compelling, some less. This is probably Nolan’s simplest, most straightforward, least cerebral story, even with its multiple flashback structure — and I enjoy the challenge of his puzzle structure in films like Tenet or The Prestige.
Right now I’m saying this one isn’t going to trouble my list of the best Nolan movies, but 12 years ago I said exactly that about Interstellar, now I’ve seen that movie half a dozen times and it is my favourite, maybe even more so than Inception or The Dark Knight. Nolan has proven to be one of those filmmakers whose films you grow to appreciate more as time passes, and his take on this ancient, time-tested tale may benefit extra viewings, as all of his work does.
