The Odyssey Review - There's No Place Like Homer

I have often seen the sentiment, particularly since his Oscar win with Oppenheimer, that Christopher Nolan himself is Hollywood’s most valuable IP. Who else could have turned a partially black-and-white biopic about a man most people have never heard of into a $976 million box office Best Picture? Nolan’s name carries a weight, a seal of quality, that even the faces of Hollywood like Tom Cruise and Scarlett Johansson must envy occasionally.

Each time he releases a film, he reinvents himself; certainly Nolan has a consistent style and themes that he enjoys tackling, but the picture of the artist “Christopher Nolan” changes just a bit each time. With only one (debatable) miss with TENET, Nolan is more reliable than Star Wars, Harry Potter, The Minions, and even Marvel. With The Odyssey, his few critics are stunned into silence once more – this epic 3,000 years in the making was worth the wait.

I was surprised that Nolan decided to retain the non-linear structure of Homer’s original poem, as it can make following the exact sequence of events complicated. Indeed, my first and only real criticism is that with its nonlinear structure and ensemble cast of characters with complicated names, it can be very hard to follow the cause-and-effect of certain events. Especially if you’re totally unfamiliar with the material, you’ll have to trust it based on vibes.

To speak to the performances first, Matt Damon (Odysseus) and Anne Hathaway (Penelope) have without question secured themselves Oscar nominations for their career-defining portrayals of these ancient characters. Damon brings fierceness, guilt, anger, and subtle intensity to his role, most notably in the last act of the film when he is undercover as a beggar in this own home. Hathaway’s prowess should be to no one’s surprise, as she stuns over and over again even in comedic performances like this year’s excellent Devil Wears Prada 2.

Going in, I really wanted to see Tom Holland blow me away – he’s been very open about wanting to become a better actor and has spent time out of Hollywood for a few years, performing on stage and working with acting coaches. While he didn’t exactly deliver an Oscar-worthy performance in The Odyssey, I feel comfortable saying that Nolan was able to pull a performance out of him that proves he has the stuff. He’s a great Spider-Man, but I don’t believe he’ll be consigned to doing it for the rest of his life.

Robert Pattinson, playing our human antagonist opposite Holland, is marvelous. It’s incredible that someone who is so good at being America’s hero Batman can produce this powerful of a shit-eating grin. I wanted to reach into the screen and kick him in the teeth every second he was on screen, chewing the scenery like a pro. I expected no less from him; from sparkling vampire to caped crusader to evil suitor, Pattinson seems to be able to do it all.

The most striking thing about The Odyssey is, unsurprisingly, its production. With environment visuals that blast you in the face every second, ancient cities on fire, the dead crawling out of Hades, and some of the scariest monsters I’ve ever seen put to film, Nolan shines here. I did view this in standard IMAX, which I feel is very important; the extra height of the screen is absolutely necessary to feel the full scale of looking upon the cyclops or Scylla. Nolan has reunited with Ludwig Göransson (Sinners, Oppenheimer), who has produced an absolutely unrelenting score. With visuals this striking, colors this powerful, and sounds that worm into your head, The Odyssey never stops smacking you in the face with itself – in the best way.

I think the best I can do to summarize how the film makes the viewer feel is in its anxiety. Even in its quiet moments, when Odysseus reflects, when Telemachus is wary, The Odyssey is panicking. The film itself is trying desperately to put these events to screen in a way that feels both grounded and fantastical. The human element of the film is constantly fighting the fantasy element in that extremely controlled way Nolan excels at, such as in Interstellar and Inception where high-concept sci-fi is battling a human story for screen time.

I haven’t seen fantasy tackled this way at this budget ever before; even The Lord of the Rings doesn’t get this visceral, violent, raw, and stress-inducing. Polyphemus, the cyclops, is one of the most frightening creatures I’ve ever seen depicted in film. Scylla, who is typically portrayed as a dragon, is instead some kind of rock monster in the cliffs to hearken back to the original poem. The dead soldiers and the giants also made me feel viscerally uncomfortable. I have to assume art director Samantha Englender is responsible for creating these monstrosities, so hats off to her. As the word’s number one Percy Jackson fan, I was truly unprepared for the way this would was brought to life.

The imagery and brutality of this film do for me what few war films have. I felt anxious, shaken, and disturbed walking out of the theater – but I was also very, very high on the masterful experience I’d just had. The shot that most calls to mind the unsung despair of wartime, the stuff that doesn’t make it into the songs, is the shots of the men in the bottom of the Trojan Horse drowning as their friends could do nothing but watch. It made me feel suffocated, too.

I also find it interesting which themes Nolan chose to tackle in this adaptation, but I like them very much. Like much Christian-inspired literature, Greek mythology is firm in that one cannot defy the gods. Fate is foretold, and if you are humble and bow to the monsters in the sky that watch us, grovel for their security, you may just get it. Letting go of control, acknowledging that fate is not in your own hands, is the only way to happiness.

Nolan gives a little twist to this concept for the modern age. He chooses to focus in not on Odysseus’s ego and defiance of the gods for himself, but for his men. He must learn, through the most wretched and painful ways possible, that he is not in control of anyone’s fate but his own. It is only at the end, when he chooses to take control of his own fate and return home to a place he knows he no longer belongs, that he sees it is the only way he can save others.

It would be silly to suggest that I could spoil a nearly 3,000 year old story, but for the sake of any readers I’ll digress. The Odyssey does exactly what it sets out to do, condensing one of the oldest and grandest stories ever into a three-hour film that captures the entire breath and depth of 20 years of a man’s life. It would be the understatement of the year to say Nolan has done it again, but here we are. I am eager to rewatch this film when I’m able, but unfortunately on a home TV it will never be the same. If there is only one film that has ever demanded to be seen in a movie theater, this is it.

FilmObserver Score: 9/10 – Outstanding