Oscar buzz is already developing for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, his adaptation of Homer’s 3,000-year-old poem. With stars including Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, Nolan has raised the bar for big-budget blockbusters, but for a reason you may not anticipate
While tackling the world of The Odyssey certainly prompted questions about translating the robust story to the screen, its themes actually fit perfectly with Nolan’s work. If you look back at films like Interstellar, Dunkirk, Inception, and The Dark Knight, you’ll see themes such as homecoming, memory, humanity, and the exploration of time, all of which are also core to Homer’s Odyssey.
This film also proves that even someone already considered a preeminent Hollywood director can keep evolving. That may seem obvious, but it rarely happens in a positive direction at this level of filmmaking.
The Odyssey release date: July 17 in theatres
Director/Writer: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya, Jon Bernthal, Lupita Nyong’o, Elliot Page, Charlize Theron, Samantha Morton, Corey Hawkins, Mia Goth, Benny Safdie
Runtime: 2 hours, 52 minutes
What is ‘The Odyssey’ about?
Damon as Odysseus spends two decades trying to find his way home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
While many in Ithaca believe he’s dead, he is in fact alive, on an island with a nymph named Calypso (Charlize Theron), and Odysseus is now reconnecting with the memories of his past life that he lost. We see each moment after the war return to him as flashbacks.
In Ithaca, suitors are vying for Penelope’s (Anne Hathaway) hand in marriage, with her husband Odysseus gone, including Robert Pattinson’s Antinous, who’s particularly cruel to Odysseus’ loyal friend and nearly blind swineherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo).
Telemachus (Tom Holland), son of Odysseus and Penelope, struggles to determine whether he should believe, like his mother, that his father is alive and will return to his throne, or if he has in fact died, and sets out on his own journey to find out.
Matt Damon in “The Odyssey” (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)
Raising the bar for blockbusters
The Odyssey is proof that there’s really no excuse for a film to get too wrapped up in creating grand visuals to execute a story that’s still character-driven. While the film is so visceral and booming that you literally feel the vibration under your skin, it’s also incredibly intimate.
And, even rarer for films of this budget, with exciting technical resources, Nolan understands the need for connective tissue between the film’s most spectacular sequences. While at times you feel things drifting in between spectacles, the story, these characters, their motivations compose a through-line that allows the film, by the end, to come together as a whole piece.
John Leguizamo in “The Odyssey” (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)
The entire cast is superb, but Leguizamo provides such an emotional depth to his character that it cuts deep into your soul. It’s the most moving performance of the entire film.
When we see Odysseus meet Samantha Morton’s Circe on his journey home, Morton delivers one of the film’s most impressive moments. While their time together is more brief than what’s in Homer’s work, she’s seductive, terrifying, and vulnerable, and this is the performance that really stays with you.
Mia Goth and Anne Hathaway in “The Odyssey” (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)
Hathaway also gives a staggering performance, and is at the heart of Odysseus’ journey. But a moment near the end of the film, where Penelope talks about her frustration for being a woman in this sexist world, adds a depth to her character that really should have been injected into the story earlier.
To answer the question everyone wants to know: yes, it is worth travelling, staying up late, and doing what you have to do to see this film in 70mm IMAX. There’s no replacing the experience of feeling like you’re really inside this world, like you could almost smell the seawater, and seeing these sweeping visuals on the gigantic screen. That being said, it’s also why The Odyssey may not be your go-to Nolan movie when it’s not in theatres, because so much of its gut-level impact is linked to its in-theatre experience.
Ultimately, it’s an example of the movie magic that happens when grandeur, sensitivity and humanity come together.