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\n Photo-Illustration: Vuture; Photos: Everett Collection (Warner Bros., Paramount, Universal)\n <\/p>\n
Warning: Light spoilers ahead for The Odyssey.<\/p>\n
The ending of Christopher Nolan\u2019s The Dark Knight Rises<\/a> lives rent-free, as they say, in the back of my mind \u2014 one of the director\u2019s finest \u201cwhere are they now\u201d\u2013type of montages that so often conclude his films. With Batman presumed dead, Wayne Manor becomes an orphanage; noble cop John Blake (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), whose real name is Robin, inherits the Batcave; and Alfred (Michael Caine) goes off to Florence to enjoy a nice Fernet Branca at an outdoor caf\u00e9. Alfred looks up from his digestif to see the very much not dead Bruce Wayne (Christian Bale) sitting across the table from Selina Kyle (Anne Hathaway). Hathaway\u2019s side profile, looking around and smiling at strangers, is the film\u2019s ultimate symbol of peace: No longer having to be Batman means that you can hang out with her forever.<\/p>\n The Dark Knight Rises was Nolan\u2019s first collaboration with Hathaway, who went on to appear in Interstellar and now stars in The Odyssey<\/a> as Penelope, one of her finest roles to date, and if there\u2019s anything that unites her three performances across these quite different films, it\u2019s that each of them ends with its male hero forsaking a civilization in favor of traveling with her to the ends of the universe. Sometimes, the end of that universe is literally just going to Florence, Italy, but in Interstellar<\/a>, Matthew McConaughey\u2019s Coop goes back out into the galaxies in order to help Hathaway\u2019s Amelia Brand populate a desolate new planet upon which humankind may one day survive. In The Odyssey, Matt Damon\u2019s Odysseus and his wife, Penelope, leave Ithaca in the hands of their capable son Telemachus (Tom Holland) in order to sail off into the distance once again, where Odysseus plans to return to Hades in order to reckon with the violence he\u2019s wrought in an attempt to come home. In all three films, she is a tether to a world that can be good at some point, if only she\u2019s granted the grace to help or lead or rule.<\/p>\n In The Odyssey, Odysseus and Penelope\u2019s abandonment of Ithaca represents a rejection of duty and obligation in a bureaucratic sense; they turn inward to prioritize their relationship to each other and to those they\u2019ve wronged. It is, as the director called it, something of a middle-age love story in this way<\/a>. As much as any of these three Nolan films have happy endings (bittersweet as they are), they do because of Hathaway\u2019s stronghold on a sense of goodness. Even when she\u2019s playing a burglar.<\/p>\n Sign up for the Vulture Daily<\/p>\n An entertainment newsletter for the pop-culture obsessed.<\/p>\n Vox Media, LLC Terms and Privacy Notice<\/p>\n