The Odyssey
Christopher Nolan’s long-awaited translation of Homer’s epic fantasy is a muddy and muddled slow-burn best sampled on IMAX.
Not the wood for the trees: Matt Damon
Image courtesy of Universal Pictures.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
The Greek myths have been adapted to the big screen with varying degrees of failure. But if anybody could pull of a Homeric feat, it would be Christopher Nolan, one of the boldest and most visionary directors working today. Here, he’s taken his $250 million budget and opted for a murky, hand-held camera aesthetic, where obfuscation is everything. There is one major consistency, though, in that every character is conceived as an American and where even Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Samantha Morton and Lupita Nyong'o (who plays two characters, just to confuse matters further) adopt American accents. Of course, this has always been a contentious issue and Brad Pitt did attempt to soften his Southwestern vowels when he played Achilles in Troy (2004), which seemed a more conscientious move after Harry Hamlin’s very American Perseus in Clash of the Titans (1981). Here, Nolan (God knows why) has gone the Amadeus route, when the director Milos Forman instructed his multi-national cast to stick to the American norm of 1780s Vienna. Initially, in The Odyssey this is an annoyance until Nolan decides to hurl more spanners at his ponderous, blundering epic.
The Anglo-American filmmaker seems hellbent on keeping the audience in the dark, from the opening caption – “a time of apparent magic” – written in grey on black and then on to the indecipherable dialogue. There’s one line: “He’s gone to London to visit his grandfather,” which this critic suspects he must have misheard. And there’s worse. There are a lot of characters in Homer’s sprawling saga, some quite duplicitous, others apparently related (although Tom Holland’s Telemachus hasn’t seen his father in yonks). You have to keep up. At times the whole thing feels like an anti-war tirade, but at least the bloodshed is fleeting and even a key beheading is symbolically rendered, which makes the 15 certificate in the UK baffling, as the film is nowhere near as gruesome as the 12A-rated Supergirl and is a good deal more educative. For those already confused, it’ll be helpful to know in advance that Lupita Nyong'o plays both Helen of Troy and, as the myth goes, her less exquisite sister Clytemnestra.
But this is really a tale of men in torment, with the female characters proving largely tokenistic – embodied by Lupita, Anne Hathaway, Samantha Morton, Zendaya and dear Charlize Theron, who does the lioness’s share of the listening. But that’s Homer for you. Matt Damon has certainly manned up for the part, although Tom Holland feels miscast as his son, yet to come of age (Holland is now in his thirties, although he does look younger), with the likes of Jon Bernthal, Benny Safdie and Travis Scott providing more than their fair share of testosterone. But for all of Nolan’s stabs at authenticity, this nautical world doesn’t feel truly lived in, not like, say, the frigates used in Peter Weir’s great period piece, Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003).
Recently Nolan has secured something of the mantle of an Emperor, but his new clothes don’t necessarily fit as snuggly as his devotees might attest, although there are several scenes that remind us of his cinematic prowess. There’s Circe (Samantha Morton) on her lonely island who has enough food to feed an army, in a scene of surprising intensity that taps into the carnality of Francis Bacon. Then there is a young boy whose sudden scream unleashes an army of armoured giants, Titans that can hurl Greek soldiers through tree trunks. And then there’s the return of Odysseus to his home on Ithaca, now a stage for boisterous revelling and systematic betrayal of his Queen, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), by far the strongest scene in the film. But this is a movie of moments, an inevitably episodic affair that doesn’t really gain any emotional momentum until the final half hour. Yes, it really is that long. However, in Imax it is rumoured to be a far more impressive film.
Cast: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Bill Irwin, Elliot Page, Corey Hawkins, John Leguizamo, Mia Goth, Benny Safdie, Jovan Adepo, Andrew Howard, Josh Stewart, Logan Marshall-Green, Travis Scott, Rafi Gavron, James Remar, Brian Vernel.
Dir Christopher Nolan, Pro Emma Thomas and Christopher Nolan, Screenplay Christopher Nolan, Ph Hoyte van Hoytema, Pro Des Ruth De Jong, Ed Jennifer Lame, Music Ludwig Göransson, Costumes Ellen Mirojnick, Sound Richard King, Dialect coach Elizabeth Himelstein.
Syncopy-Universal Pictures.
172 mins. USA/UK. 2026. UK and US Rel: 17 July 2026. Cert. 15.
