We saw The Odyssey (2026) last night. I give Christopher Nolan credit for making a nearly three-hour film that moves briskly. It was entertaining throughout. It had a few good characters, and some scenes and bits I truly enjoyed, including some that Nolan made up. It was not discernibly woke. But overall, I left the theater frustrated and sour.
I set myself to watch the movie on its own terms, and I was prepared for it to be a modern take. The whole reason we still read the Odyssey is because it is so rich, you can keep returning to it at different times in different contexts, and come away with something new. I have no issue with going to a deep well and pulling up one drink and savoring just that.
But there’s a difference between going, “Let’s look at just one facet of this immense story” and “Let’s fix this old thing up so it’s meaningful.” Nolan did the latter. But he kept butting up against the immensity of the story itself, and his retelling ended up not making even internal sense.
In the beginning and at the end, they make a point of saying that nobody will remember what really happened, and by the time events becomes story and song, the details will be forgotten. So the movie sets itself up not just to be a retelling, but to be the one that sets the record straight: Here is what really happened (including the idea that Helen was just an excuse to start the Trojan war, and the real reasons were purely political). But that’s not only arrogant, it’s cowardly, because it also plants the seed that it’s not really possible to remember things accurately, and if you don’t like it, well, maybe it’s not what really happened.
This is the movie’s main flaw: It does not commit. It wants things both ways. It wants to be a bold new telling of a dusty old story, that uncovers what was really going on in the hearts of heroes; but it also wants to hide its messy bits in ambiguity, and if you have any questions about what something actually means or why someone actually did something, well, poetry is like that, and who can say.
The other major flaw — and this one was more obviously and painfully evident — was the dialogue, which was absurdly terrible. Using modern language is fine. Telemachus calls his parents “mom” and “dad,” and Odysseus says “Ten years on this fucking beach,” and that’s fine. This kind of thing can work. The problem was that every single line in the movie — every one! — was stilted, dull, and forgettable. The worst lines were the ones that were set up to be dramatically profound. At least three times while I watched, I asked myself, ” . . . wait, what does that actually mean?” I can’t quote the specific lines for you, because I can’t remember them. If you’ve been on Tumblr, though, you can imagine the tone.
So let’s step back for a moment. This movie sets out to explore the idea of trauma. In this telling, the reason Odysseus takes ten years to get home is sort of because the gods are punishing him, but also because he has violated his own internal ethics; but he is unable to face up to the ramifications of how much evil humanity is capable of, and he’s simply not ready to go home yet. This is a valid and interesting idea for a story!
But guys. It was Matt Damon. He was just not up to it. The movie wanted to be “what if Odysseus were a tortured and guilty man with interior demons to overcome” but it was actually “What if Odysseus were boring?”
So many people were annoyed that this telling of the Odyssey made Odysseus kind of small — small in stature, pointy of face, not especially charismatic or kingly — and that the landscape is so heavy and dreary, rather than sparkling and lovely. I think that was on purpose: It was supposed to be giving us a world where self doubt, grief, guilt, and regret are what make Odysseus go (or not go). This may have been interesting! It’s not as if ancient Greece shies away from the idea tragedy or human flaws.
But this is only a worthwhile take if it enlightens anything. And nothing was enlightened.
Yet it still managed to be painfully didactic. Nolan juggles an impressive number of flashbacks and non-linear storytelling, and it is all skillfully woven together so you can easily track what happened when. In fact, it was too skillfully done. It felt like watching a movie in class, and the teacher keeps pressing pause and saying, “Ok, now pay attention, guys. This is the part where we first understand why Odysseus is sad! Okay, now let’s watch.” It was so overt, I was insulted.
The movie’s strongest points were the action sequences, and these were where I came the closest to losing myself in the movie. The sack of Troy was wonderful, engaging and frightening and horrible. The cyclops sequence was fantastic. I liked where they were going with Circe as a sort of embittered cat lady, and the way she physically labored to transform the men into pigs was truly scary.
Menelaus was fun, and embodied the character well. Antinous was very convincing as a scheming creep. Eumaus was decent and sympathetic. Telemachus was okay. Helen was fine, and her being black was not startling and did no violence to the plot, but she is by no means a major character. Calypso (Charlize Theron) is some kind of J. Crew model-turned-holistic-therapist, and she got a massive amount of screen time. This was an important part of how the movie was framed, as a time for Odysseus to come to terms with what he has done, and to decide how he wants to live going forward. Again, this is not an outrageous idea, and its’ worth exploring.
But . . . they don’t really explore it. Everything that is bothering poor Matt Damon is chalked up to Zeus’ Law, which the characters reference incessantly. Mostly it means hospitality, but it’s also shorthand for the golden rule, fair play, piety, and possibly the Geneva Conventions. It’s not really clear. I think the general idea was this is a world that works as long as people behave decently, and when they don’t, things go bad, and it turns out Odysseus is one of the guys who sometimes doesn’t behave decently. I don’t have a quibble with this, but it’s not as groundbreaking an idea as it thinks it is. It felt, in fact, dated. It was a reframing that would have seemed daring and transgressive in the mid-90’s.
They really wanted it to be more than an action movie, so they kept stealing the glory and satisfaction out of the action, to show that there was more going on than meets the eye. So you, a willing and attentive viewer, look closer . . . and there’s just not much there. Really just Matt Damon. And I’m sorry, I like Matt Damon, but the role they set him up to play was an extremely complex and contradictory man, and he just didn’t do it.
I wish they had just made it an action movie, instead of trying and failing to get clever with it all. The closest I cam to losing myself in the movie was during the action sequences. When he strings his bow and plucks it, that’s probably the best few seconds in the whole movie, and it’s the perfect spot for a turn and a massive, cathartic redemption of everything we’ve all just been through. I thought, Okay, we’re finally getting into the final part which will make everything else fall into place and redeem all the ambiguity we’ve been wallowing around in so far. And I thought it was going to! I could have done without the “rising panic of a swarm of bees” sound that they use several times in the movie to indicate (with a heavy club) tension, but the slaughter of the suitors scene really is satisfying and thrilling. They were so rotten, and he came back and put it all to rights! He killed ’em good!
And then things disintegrate again. They collapse back into ambivalence and portentous ambiguity. Penelope recognizes him, but there is no marriage bed built from a living tree. Instead, we briefly see that her throne has a tree carved into it. The best reading I can make of this is that their marriage and the kingdom and . . . I don’t know, Things That Matter, endure because we decide to make them matter. The worst reading, which I fear is the intended one, is that we use poetry and song and art to craft an appealing version of our lives and of the world, but the truth is actually always something much more flimsy and precarious.
We didn’t sit through all the credits, but I would absolutely believe you if you told me there was a little coda where Odysseus and Penelope spend some time in intensive therapy, possibly with Calypso as their gracious host, and they eventually decide that a conscious uncoupling rooted in mutual respect and accountability would be healthier for everyone involved.
Have I mentioned Anne Hathaway as Penelope? I think she does the absolute best acting she is capable of, and good for her. Her posture is excellent throughout, and her hair looks really nice.
But I have not yet talked about the gods.
Again, I was ready to accept a bold reimagining of this world that doesn’t have visible gods in it, except for Athena. In the original, they aren’t even visible that often, and frequently act by stirring up the emotions of various characters and making them overcome with fear, panic, lust, etc. The idea that the gods represent psychological realities of humans is not exactly groundbreaking.
But once again, the movie hedges its bets and ends up with something incoherent, and much lesser than it could have been. In the movie, the gods are real(ish) because the characters basically believe they are real; but it doesn’t know how to make the characters both relatable and pious. So it makes the gods not only invisible and inscrutable, but into a sort of psychological cover story for interior choices; and those are definitely real. Athena seems to appear when Odysseus needs the gods to be real.
Again, this is okay, if that’s what they want to do! This is a retelling, and they can do what they want, as long as they do it well.
And they do not.
Look. If you’re building a world, you have to be consistent. If they are going to make the gods into just a collective cultural framework that explains human psychology and ethics, then WHY THE FRACK ARE THERE REAL MONSTERS? Why are supernatural things only really real when they’re scary?
I know the answer! It’s the old Dante problem: It’s way easier to depict a compelling and interesting Inferno than it is a compelling and interesting Paradiso. So yeah, it’s easier to make a movie with an otherworldly cyclops, and giants, and witch, than it is to make an otherworldly pantheon. So he just skips the pantheon. But the great irony is, when Nolan does literally depict the inferno — when Odysseus goes to Hades to talk to Tiresius, and he meets Sinon and some of his other men — it’s boring as heck. You can’t even tell exactly when they arrive in Hades. It’s just, like, the worst beach ever, and the shades aren’t creepy. They’re unpleasant, and they’re definitely grumpy, but they’re just basically guys who are extremely dirty.
So this is a world that does have otherworldly, transcendental elements, except when it comes to mankind.
The story has no numinosity, at all. It’s not even sexy, which is crazy! It’s not just that it’s so gritty and dark and I don’t like that, and I wish they had more pretty, sparkling, glorious parts. It’s that it wants you to understand that there is more than meets the eye to this and that . . . but it never tells you what that more might be. I truly don’t think it knows.
*******
Image:
Matt Damon as Odysseys and Zendaya as Athena in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey (2026)
