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“THINK NOT TO match yourself against the gods, for men that walk the earth cannot hold their own with the immortals.”
The line comes from Greek poet Homer’s Iliad rather than The Odyssey, but Christopher Nolan could easily have pinned it to the wall of the editing room.
For all its giants, sirens, witches and gods, The Odyssey is ultimately about ordinary people who become trapped inside extraordinary stories. It’s about the myths we build around heroes, and what gets lost when history starts treating men like immortals.
After Oppenheimer, it feels like an unexpectedly natural next step for Nolan.
Rather than telling Odysseus’ lengthy journey home from the Trojan War chronologically, the film opens years after the fall of Troy (the ancient source material also plays with the order of the tale). We start with the king of Ithaca (Matt Damon) stranded on Calypso’s island (Calypso is played by Charlize Theron).
Back home, his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) struggles to keep control of Ithaca as her palace fills with increasingly brazen suitors, while their son Telemachus (Tom Holland) begins searching for the father he barely remembers.
Once the scene is set, Odysseus recounts his journey in fragments, taking us through many of the poem’s most famous episodes, from the Cyclops and Circe to the Underworld and the sirens, while Nolan repeatedly cuts back to Troy to reveal the horrors that set everything in motion.
One phrase echoes throughout the film.
“Zeus’ law has been torn to pieces,” says John Leguizamo’s Eumaeus.
In ancient Greece, “Zeus’ law” was a sacred moral order: hospitality, kindness to strangers, keeping oaths and protecting those who sought refuge. Nolan uses that idea as the moral backbone of the story.
Every stage of Odysseus’s journey becomes another example of what happens when those obligations are abandoned, beginning with Troy itself.
The famous Trojan horse is no glorious victory here. Each return to Troy, particularly the extraordinary sequence where Odysseus and his men emerge to open the city’s gates, makes the conquest feel increasingly disturbing and morally compromising.
Running alongside that is another idea.
“Don’t look for gods in men. You’ll only be disappointed,” Odysseus tells his son Telemachus at one point.
The film spends much of its running time reminding us that heroes are usually just people who’ve had better stories told about them.
Ironically, the film slightly undercuts that message in its closing act.
The final battle in Ithaca, where Odysseus returns home to reunite with his son and confront (kill) Penelope’s suitors, is staggeringly well choreographed but stretches just a little too long.
It turns Odysseus into something resembling the demigods the film has spent nearly three hours questioning. It’s exhilarating to watch, but it slightly muddies the point, my only real criticism of an otherwise extraordinary film.
This film is relentless. At times, it’s almost suffocating.
The Cyclops sequence, during which Odysseus’ crew becomes trapped in a cave with the beast, is one of the most unnerving things Nolan has ever directed. The creature’s sheer size is astonishing, but it’s the sense of weight that makes the scene work. Every movement feels seismic, helped enormously by Ludwig Göransson’s score.
Circe’s island leans fully into horror, with the transformation of Odysseus’s crew into pigs creating some genuinely disgusting imagery.
Visually, this is probably Nolan’s most spectacular film. From Troy to the vast Mediterranean and the dark sands of the Underworld, the sense of scale is overwhelming. Even the sea feels alive, every crashing wave making you feel trapped aboard Odysseus’s ship.
Göransson’s score deserves awards on its own. The slow-building percussion beneath the Trojan Horse sequence creates unbearable tension before a sword is ever drawn, while quieter passages allow the emotional moments room to breathe.
The cast is uniformly excellent, but John Leguizamo deserves particular praise. His Eumaeus becomes the emotional heart of the film. Robert Pattinson also shines and is magnificently repulsive as Antinous, Zendaya is graceful and commanding as Athena, and Himesh Patel brings some warmth to Odysseus’ right-hand man Eurylochus.
Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland also ensure the scenes back in Ithaca never feel like an interruption to the adventure.
The American accents and occasional modern dialogue (“My dad is coming home” jars at first in a Greek epic) take a little getting used to, but you quickly stop noticing.
This is raw, ambitious filmmaking from a director operating at the height of his powers. Would it be too much to ask Nolan for a three-hour retelling of Cú Chulainn’s story next?
The Odyssey opens in Irish cinemas on Friday 17 July
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