Based upon Homer's Odyssey
Written for the Screen, Produced and Directed by Christopher Nolan
**** (four stars)
RATED R
RUNNING TIME: 2 hrs 49 min
Has Christopher Nolan been creating and recreating The Odyssey the entire time? Has his entire filmography essentially existed as all one long film?
It feels to be simultaneously impossible and extremely fitting that filmmaker Christopher Nolan would decided to take on nothing less than one of the oldest surviving works of literature ever written as his filmography has proven itself to being titanic in scope, depth, execution, purpose, intention and even critical and box office success.
In our current precarious cinematic era where the likes of sequels, prequels, reboots, remakes and re-imaginings and anyone wearing a cape set to all manner of CGI bombast and bludgeoning rule the day at the near expense of any and every other film genre. A time when we really do not exactly have movie stars in the same way as years and decades past. Christopher Nolan has emerged as one of the few filmmakers who can open a film into theaters based solely upon his name. His commitment to the filmmaking process and the film going experience is unshakable and the purity of his fearsome commitment shining to blinding degrees with the release of each film, making each entry an event in and of itself...and that undeniably includes the ambitious, polarizing, noble misfire "Tenet" (2020).
Now, we arrive at "The Odyssey," Nolan's adaptation and more importantly, his interpretation of Homer's epic poem--first composed around the 7th or 8th century--and what he has accomplished is a massive, downright Herculean production which takes the sandals, swords, Gods and monsters and miraculously delivers a resoundingly profound, poetic and haunting experience that is not only grounded in its humanity while more than overflowing with the spectacle, it serves as the culmination of his cinematic work to date as well as stretching and folding time itself (as is his wont) to ensure the history of the film remains strikingly present. I am not quite certain if this is Nolan's very best film as his quality control overall is exceedingly of high standard and I suppose if pressed, I might say that "The Dark Knight" (2008) may be my personal favorite film of his. That being said, Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" is a masterful, mountainous achievement, making for not only being one of the best films of 2026 but one of the best films of the 21st century. It is deeply staggering to behold.
As with Homer's poem, Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" stars Matt Damon as Odysseus, King of Ithaca, confronting seemingly endless trials and tribulations during his arduous 10 year journey homeward after the 10 year Trojan War, fully initiated via the Trojan Horse, which covertly encased himself and his soldiers.
Meanwhile back in Ithaca, and with Odysseus presumed perished during the war, his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway), Queen of Ithaca, strategically fends off a collective of unruly suitors--including the insidious Antinous (a serpentine Robert Pattinson)--vying for her hand in marriage in order to obtain access to the throne. Odysseus and Penelope's son Telemachus, Prince of Ithaca (Tom Holland), a baby upon Odysseus' departure and now aged 20, is determined to discover the whereabouts of his Father despite all news and hopes to the contrary, aside from Odysseus' faithful and blind swineherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo).
Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" is a seismically staggering, sprawling, operatic experience which merges the war film, love stories, a coming of age tale and existential crisis masterfully. It is a muscular presentation fueled by a feverish adherence to the tactile experience of real sets, locations and props as opposed to the CGI green screen aesthetic that has now become so much the norm that special effects are so commonplace as to not be "special" anymore. Precisely like Phil Lord and Christopher Miller's outstanding "Project Hail Mary" from earlier this year, Nolan weaves movie magic so vividly and viscerally that you can nearly touch, smell and feel the weight and fabric of every perilous item and location just as the characters themselves.
Enormous credit must be heaped upon frequent Nolan collaborator Cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Editor Jennifer Lame for expertly weaving together Nolan's traditional non-linear structure and good Lord (!!!), Composer Ludwig Goransson has created yet another innovative, astonishing score that serves completely as immersive soundscape and firmly announces him--again--as one of cinema's greatest young composers, who just one day may take that specific throne based upon his work for both Nolan and Ryan Coogler alone, and after we have all been enthralled for generations with the likes of John Williams, Hans Zimmer and the late Jerry Goldsmith. Goransson has more than proven himself as one who miraculously keeps topping himself, and his work of "The Odyssey" presents him in an especially imaginative and thunderous state. A remarkable achievement.
Near the outset of this posting, I remarked that Christopher Nolan, for all of the considerable fire, brimstone, shock and awe, in fact created an experience that is surprisingly grounded and humane, as it could have very easily flown off into the Marvel-esque stratosphere.
In its own way, it feels extremely in line with essentially Nolan's entire oeuvre, as "The Odyssey" stars yet another outer and inner journey of a tortured male figure. Nolan's Odysseus is not terribly far removed from his short term memory loss afflicted protagonist in "Memento" (2000), Al Pacino's sleeplessness plagued homicide detective in "Insomnia" (2002), the warring magicians in "The Prestige" (2006), the brooding, psychologically damaged Bruce Wayne in "The Dark Knight Trilogy" (2005/2008/2012), Leonardo DiCaprio's dream thief in "Inception" (2010), the outer space, time travelling astronaut of "Interstellar" (2014), and the inverted entropy voyaging CIA agent in the aforementioned "Tenet"," all of whom are wrestling with choices made and the often shattering consequences of their actions.
Yet, even further for me, I felt "The Odyssey" was essentially the third act in Nolan's possible unofficial trilogy featuring "Dunkirk" (2017) and "Oppenheimer" (2023) existing as the first two acts, as all share themes and poetic visual cues and movements that feel to serve as echoes with each other--for me, a sequence featuring Odysseus and his soldiers all cramped together inside the Trojan Horse felt like a visual mirror to the sequence of submerged young soldiers facing bullets from above and drowning from below in "Dunkirk," for instance.
Essentially, everything we view within "The Odyssey" stems from the consequences which erupt and befall Odysseus from the breaking of Zeus' law of caring for your neighbors, and feeding and housing the stranger as Gods were believed to walk among mortals in disguise. This tenet (ha ha), which ultimately serves as a stand in for "Do unto others...," upon being violated, unleashes the unthinkable which reverberates over time upending all that had existed before.
In a strange way, I was deeply reminded of what is now the iconic nightmare world contained in "Episode 8" of David Lynch's "Twin Peaks: The Return" (2018), in which he posits that the first test of Oppenheimer's Trinity nuclear bomb test in 1945 White Sand, New Mexico, was an event so awesome in its destruction of the natural law that a fabric in time and space opened, creating a pathway for a greater evil to emerge. With regards to Christopher Nolan's interpretive reading within " The Odyssey," here is where I found the film for all of its massive scale, it remained an intimate experience that could be viewed and read on a dual level.
Yes, we could take every moment presented at face value, interacting with the episodic structure and adventures within adventures literally. Or, on a deeper level, I feel that Nolan has delivered an ominous portrait of Odysseus wrestling with the PTSD from 10 years of war and his morality overall, over the ensuing 10 years before returning home, with the Gods and monsters themselves represented as more tangible figures than overtly existential, where claps of thunder and raging seas are the wrath of Zeus and Poseidon, respectively.
Is the ethereal presence of the Goddess Athena (Zendaya), who occasionally appears at Odysseus' side during his journey actually present or is she a representation of Odysseus' conscience wrestling with choices made and consequences delivered? Are the side quests and challenges with the Cyclops, a losing battle against the armor clad giants, a feverish nightmare section starring the witch Circe (an incredible Samantha Morton), the self-inflicted terror of hearing the Siren's Song and more all true tales of Odysseus' perilous travels back to Ithaca or are they traumatic hallucinogenic formations of the guilt and shame Odysseus is consumed by after the loss of all of his soldiers during a 7 year lotus flower induced haze? And to that end, is that haze one induced by the seductive nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron) or again, is she a psychological representation of Odysseus' penance as he is overcome with grief, loss, and self-mortification and the need to just forget?
All of these qualities made "The Odyssey" a decidedly more emotionally wrenching experience than I had anticipated, for Odysseus' pain and pathos not only resides in his loss of morality but whether he can atone and repent, deserves to, or should even be allowed to, making us in the audience question whether the "home" he is desperately trying to reach is solely a physical space or additionally, some sense of spiritual deliverance, ascension or at least, a possible re-balance of the existential scales.
Through Matt Damon's portrayal we are allowed to feel the weight of Odysseus' trauma and suffering as what is thought to being heroic is actually hubris at its most reckless, ruthless and disgraceful. This quality extends itself to the story in its entirety, just as depicted in "Dunkirk," the Trojan War is every war fought before and since. The towering persistence of women within a world ruled by the very men who overlook, covet, and desecrate them is urgently presented via Anne Hathaway's rigid tenacity and the aforementioned righteous fury of Samantha Morton. All of the obstacles and pitfalls showcase how our inhumanity begets more inhumanity. Empires are destined to one day fall, a striking statement to present in our current state of being in 21st century America, which is dying in real time, and like Troy and Ithaca, whatever remains and/or emerges afterwards will never quite resemble what existed before.
All of these qualities and more makes Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" feel so distinctly present, not remote and by film's end, deeply poignant, evocative and powerfully unsettling even as we have been unquestionably awed by the experience.
Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey," even deeper within its core, is a presentation of the ultimate story, which is indeed a story about stories and storytelling, how stories are created, the ways in which stories are passed around and passed down and therefore, how myths are formed, possibly as Nolan might be arguing, forged as the lies we tell ourselves to assuage our own significant moral failures and hopefully, as lessons we can teach ourselves to transcend those failures. Which certainly feels like the story Christopher Nolan has been expressing to us with such force and vision throughout the entirety of his career.
While "The Odyssey" can be read as a sort of summing up, I am already anxious to see what new cinematic chapter Christopher Nolan will undoubtedly return with. But, this one is more than sensational in its satisfaction.
SAVAGE POSTSCRIPT:
If there is one quibble that I had with the film it is again a Nolan trademark and that is his controversial sound design, which again is unbearably loud. While I did not see the film in the IMAX format (it is just sensory overload for me--I cannot endure it), I did take a set of earplugs for my screening, which indeed helped considerably with the volume but did muffle some key dialogue here and there.
You have been gently warned.
