There’s a reason Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey has survived three thousand years of retelling, and Christopher Nolan clearly understands it: some journeys are too big for the page alone. There are over 30 TV and film direct and indirect adaptions, so he wasn’t the only one. This latest edition to the legacy, is generally quite good.
Matt Damon leads as Odysseus, the legendary Greek king navigating his way home after the Trojan War, with Anne Hathaway as Penelope and Tom Holland as his son, Telemachus. Zendaya takes on the role of the goddess Athena, and Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong’o round out a cast stacked with heavyweight talent.
Matt Damon as Odysseus and Zendaya as Athena.
You might have read some of the online ‘discourse’ if you can call it that, surrounding trans actor Elliot Page being cast as Achilles A rumour started that Page was being cast as Achilles who was famously depicted as a famously a beautiful homosexual twink with supernatural combat abilities and nearly impenetrable skin – which drew intense and heated criticism from the manosphere. Their outrage seemed to stem largely from the fact that Brad Pitt once played the character, which of course, was their main point of reference. These critics have apparently never picked up the actual Odyssey, or any book, for that matter.
Luckily for the manosphere, Page was in reality, cast as Simon. Instead of hanging their heads in shame at being played for fools by online trolls, many of the same critics simply redirected their outrage toward Lupita Nyong’o being cast as Helen of Troy. How dare Hollywood cast a black woman as “the most beautiful woman in the world.” It should have gone to a pale-skinned, bleach-blonde, circa-90s Pam Anderson type, per the traditional ancient Greek look. These people care as much about accuracy to the original text as I do about crypto. Just say you’re racist and let’s move on. I will say, however, that I know Elliot Page is a man because his character had more than a few lines, and was slightly more complex than a vehicle to move Odysseus to the next plot point. More on that later.
Elliot Page as Simon.
Let’s look at some of the things I liked about the film:
The writing was good. I always cringe a little before watching a film adaptation of a book I’ve read. The book is almost always better, and this happens to be one of the most famous books of all time. For me, it was a double whammy: I’ve not only read the book but studied it at University. It’s been a while, but I’ve always loved Classics and anything to do with Ancient Greece and Rome. So I expected to find this film hard to watch, but I didn’t. I enjoyed it for the most part, and found myself genuinely drawn into the story.
Diversity in the cast. I won’t spend much time on this one, but yes, I did like that the cast was diverse and no, it isn’t lip service to ‘woke’. We are talking about several different states/kingdoms/ cities so there is going to be diversity. It might not have looked exactly like Nolan’s film, but this is a myth anyway. I could be wrong, but there also wasn’t cyclops and giants running around ancient Greece. Plus, it’s fun to see such a juggernaut cast. The acting was stellar, especially Matt Damon, Himesh Patel, John Leguizamo and Zendaya.
I love that the film is anti-war. The most powerful thing about this re-telling is that Nolan reframes Homer’s epic as a powerful anti-war film, focusing heavily on post-war trauma, guilt, and the heavy personal cost of combat rather than just glorifying ancient heroism. The next few sentences are going to be spoilers so skip this paragraph if you haven’t seen it yet – The film emphasises the intense loss of war. Odysseus lost so much time, nearly lost his family, he missed out on seeing his son grow up. By deceiving the people of Troy with the Trojan Horse, he lost a huge amount of integrity as a fellow human. Odysseus numbly watches the city of Troy fall, knowing the death and destruction he’s now helpless to do anything other than witness, is his own doing. Viewers watch as innocent civilians are brutalised and then murdered in their homes. (BIG spoiler here) reveling his constant companion, the Goddess Athena, to be the embodiment of a Priestess murdered in front of him. It’s left ambiguous if this is actually Athena or a manifestation of guilt. This was done in a beautiful, haunting way. Further, once Odysseus returns home, He is confronted with the revelation that it is in fact he and his men the neighbouring lands are scared of. They are the foreign monsters bringing death and destruction. Off that hit right in the guts. Especially now.
Another fantastic thing about this film worth a mention, is the throw back to old Hollywood production. Noland rejected CGI for his monsters and special effects. It made it feel like I was watching a classic film, reminiscent of Ray Harryhausen. There was a quiet beauty to it that felt more art than flashy, over the top modern action movies. like a lot of modern movie goers, I’m sick to death of over the top, fake-looking CGI.
The Cyclops was cool and creepy and NOT CGI.
Some not so great things about the film:
For a film at just over three hours, it failed the Bechdel Test. Yes, you could argue that the film is about a man, with a male-only crew, but the original text The Lotus-Eaters, The Sirens, and Calypso & her maids are all huge portions of the story focusing on female characters. All of these were left out. This is also something Nolan, unfortunately, is known for doing. Like many male directors, he’s a genius, right up until it comes to writing women. This is why it’s so important to have more female directors and female representation in film. While there many juicy male characters, every single female character was wooden and I am being generous when I say 2D. Some of the very best encounters Odysseus has on his journey home are with women characters. These were all either heavily reduced, or cut completely. I’ve read Charlie Theron’s Calypso referred to a ‘beach therapist’, and that sums it up. This Calypso had absolutely no personality except to talk to Odysseus about his ‘issues’. She just sort of appeared there, no reference to who she was, why she lived alone on a secluded beach. The character had less depth than the character Theron played in the J’Adore Dior perfume commercials.This is no dig at Charlize Theron, quite the contrary, she is a fantastic actor and would have made a perfect Nymph Calypso. In the book, this character is a very powerful Nymph, and falls in love with Odysseus, offering him immortality and a god-like life with her. He rejects this to return to his home, and the love of his life, Penelope. This is a major plot point for Odysseus because it illustrates his good character and deep love and longing for his home and family. Leaving this out is odd and weakens the plot. This complete gutting of substance for female characters, happens to every single one throughout the film.
Charlize Theron as Calypso.
Look, I know it’s a fantasy so it doesn’t need to be realistic. I know that being a fantasy, the film doesn’t need to have a time period sense of accuracy. However, I couldn’t help but notice stripping away all of the ancient Greek colour and flare made it look dull. What do I mean by this? The castle in Ithaca, where a good portion of the film takes place, looked like it was designed as some sort of after thought. The Ancient Greek buildings were brightly painted with strong colours like red, blue, yellow, and green. It looked like a crumbling castle was rented (which they actually did, it was Castello di Santa Caterina) and then slapped some end tables down, which was weird for such a big budget film. I get that the story it’s a Bronze Age castle, I get that the suitors are deplenishing all their resources…. But still. Surely at least the inside could have looked a little bit like an ancient Greek castle?
The makeup. Much along the same lines as the architecture, the make-up was not only inaccurate but…boring? Women of that era wore makeup so historically unique, and well known, it didn’t feel right without at least some reference to it. Seeing the cast look so much like themselves, fresh faced and beautiful – but in a very modern way, it looked boring. It took me out of the story. Again, this is a re-telling of a myth, but still, part of the fantasy is the costume design.
My last point of contention is the god-awful accents. This is a difficult one because there does need to be a uniform accent, and they aren’t going to make it Greek. But having a very modern American accent, especially with a bunch of Brits obviously putting on an American accent – just felt off. I’m not sure what the answer to this might be, but I do know that Menelaus did not work with a full-on wise-guy accent. While Jon Bernthal is often an excellent tough-guy (love him as The Punisher) there was something so odd about his accent. It felt like Telemachus took a boat to Brooklyn and not King Menelaus in Sparta. Even weirder, Bernthal doesn’t sound like that in real life so there was a choice made to do that voice. Maybe I don’t get it because I’m not American.
Outside of the film, another controversy worth a mention is that Zendaya wore 3000 year old Iranian artifacts made into earrings for one of the red carpets. I won’t go into details because this topic deserves its very own full article or video: here is a some good breakdown from an Archaeologist, why this sucks. It is worth noting that this was an incredibly tone deaf thing to do to her team. Not only is the US currently bombing Iran, but the super-rich shouldn’t be allowed to damage precious artifacts for a red carpet outfit. I can’t imagine what it would be like as an Iranian, to watch your culture and history be used as an accessory by rich Americans for an American film, while that very country is bombing you.
