Title: The Odyssey
Describe This Movie In One O Brother, Where Art Thou? Quote:
ULYSSES EVERETT McGILL: Damn, we’re in a tight spot!
Brief Plot Synopsis: Greek general wins war, goes on a … journey? Quest? Voyage? It’ll come to me.
Rating Using Random Objects Relevant To The Film: 4 Synchronicity albums out of 5.
Tagline: “Defy the gods.”
Better Tagline: “You do know which gods we’re talking about, right?”
Not So Brief Plot Synopsis: Boy, I thought that Trojan War would never end. Yet end it has, after ten years, and now a victorious Odysseus (Matt Damon) can finally go home to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway). He’d better hurry though, because Penelope and their son Telemachus (Tom Hardy) are fending off suitors waiting for her to accept that her husband isn’t coming back. But Odysseus has his own obstacles to overcome, including mythical beasts, witches, and the wrath of some very petulant deities.
“Critical” Analysis: It’s mythology, y’all.
The tales that inspired the The Iliad and The Odyssey were passed down through oral tradition centuries before Homer finally wrote them out. There’s no evidence that the Trojan War, in the context of these stories, ever occurred.* Nor is there any that the characters in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: Odysseus, Penelope, Agamemnon, Telemachus — to say nothing of the Greek pantheon — ever existed.
This boring intro is my attempt to put the “Odyssey casting discourse” in the rearview mirror. Specifically, the asinine right-wing criticisms of casting Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra. Similar pointless discussions followed House of the Dragon, the live-action Little Mermaid remake, and just about every other genre film or TV show in the last 30 years. Now, as then, they’re only worth mentioning in context of how laughably moronic they are.
[Pause while I laugh my ass off at how the usual internet dipshits worked themselves into a lather** over Nyong’o having barely five minutes of screen time in a nearly three-hour movie.]
Does The Odyssey have problems? Some, but they aren’t related to a lily-white Hathaway playing “Ithacan queen” Penelope, or Jon Bernthal having difficulty shedding his Punisher persona for Menelaus (or not much, anyway). If anything, Nolan’s insistence on Americanizing everyone and using modern-sounding dialogue are obliquely connected. But these are minor.
Of more concern is Nolan’s tendency to speedrun the story’s esoteric elements in favor of personal drama. A disturbingly Hieronymous Bosch-ian Polyphemus and a surprisingly relevant Circe (Samantha Morton) get the most screen time. But we zip right through the Laestrygonians (who I assume those big dudes on some of the posters are) and the Sirens’ song.
This is pretty on-brand. Nolan has never shied from fantasy or (usually) sci-fi to serve his larger themes of obsession, existentialism, and human nature itself. So his decision to sideline the gods so central to the story is a bit of a bummer. Zeus and Poseidon are represented by thunderstorms and raging surf rather than in literal form. Meanwhile Athena (Zendaya) only appears to Odysseus, which could be interpreted as a manifestation of his guilt at the sack of her temple in Troy. Or Nolan could be suggesting Odysseus isn’t quite right in the head.
Non-linear storytelling is another of Nolan’s trademarks, though The Odyssey doesn’t overdo it. Flashbacks tell the story of Odysseus’s … odyssey, intercut with Penelope’s suitor dilemma.
And in keeping with that has become a synonym for the title, The Odyssey is Nolan’s most epic work to date. The movie greatly benefits from his insistence on filming on location, spreading the action across six countries. Cinematographer and longtime collaborator Hoyte van Hoytema captures each of these settings brilliantly. And it likely makes him an early favorite to follow up on his Oppenheimer Oscar win.
Damon portrays Odysseus more stoically than the source material. I’m not sure if that’s an inherent limitation on his part or directorial edict, but the movie doesn’t suffer overmuch for it. If we were to single out any particularly strong performances, it’d probably be Morton as Circe*** Charlize Theron as Calypso, and Himesh Patel as Odysseus’s second-in-command Eurylochus. The last a much more heroic figure than represented in Homer’s epic.
By the way, Odysseus spends seven years with Calypso. Choosing between Charlize Theron and Anne Hathaway is a real “caught between Scylla and Charybdis” dilemma, I guess.
The Odyssey is epic in the style of old Hollywood (despite, you know, casting people of color). It’s Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious work to date. And a few nitpicks aside, it triumphantly brings a classic tale into the 21st Century.
*Beyond some historical references to conflicts between the Hittites and the forces of Ahhiyawa (possibly the Greeks/Achaeans), but nobody cares.
**[Trojan] horse reference.
***Probably not an objective conclusion, as I adore Samantha Morton.
The Odyssey is in theaters today.
