Curiosity Inc.

“The Odyssey” is a myth. It never happened. None of these people ever really existed. There is no evidence that the Trojan War ever happened, certainly not as depicted in Homer’s works. We have no idea who Homer was. We don’t know how anyone looked or sounded three thousand years ago. In fact, after three thousand years of genetic drift, it’s quite possible nobody back then looked or sounded like anyone now.

Two things can be true at the same time. It is absolutely true that anyone who complains about “historical accuracy” in a depiction of ancient myth is an asshole only interested in twisting ancient history and modern media to suit their own agenda. It is also true that Christopher Nolan is a jackass.

I’ve said it for years, and I still maintain that Nolan lost himself up his own ass a long time ago. One could argue that Inception was the moment when Nolan’s ego got out of control, but I still point to Tenet as the inflection point. It takes a special kind of disconnect to insist that a massive blockbuster be given a full theatrical run in a time of global plague, and be somehow shocked when it loses money. Warner Bros. gave Nolan everything he asked for in defiance of all common sense, and he still went crying to Universal. The arrogant bastard.

All this time later, Nolan continues to insist that his films are made for IMAX and must be seen on IMAX. So, if you can’t afford to pay a massive premium for an IMAX ticket, fuck you. If you don’t live anywhere near an IMAX theater, fuck you. If you ever want to see the film at home or after the opening theatrical run, fuck you.

The only reason why Nolan keeps getting away with this shit is that he’s a brilliant filmmaker who makes gorgeous movies. Nolan is a bona fide craftsman, one of the last few high-profile innovators in practical effects and camerawork. This despite the fact that his films have gotten increasingly impenetrable and pretentious. I might add that if Nolan is so insistent that his films won’t hold up as well if they’re seen on anything less than the biggest and most lavish format possible, that honestly says more about him and his cinematic output than anything else.

I might add that recently, news came in that the planned 100-day shoot was completed in 91 days. Why? By Nolan’s own account, the shoot had to shut down early because everyone in the cast and crew was too physically exhausted to continue. That does not show good planning. That does not show a healthy working environment. Yet this is supposedly one of the great modern directors. Bite me.

So, purely out of spite, I went to see The Odyssey at one of my smaller local theaters. A place that most certainly does not meet IMAX standards. And to be sure, it didn’t take away anything from the film’s scope and spectacle. There were quite a few scenes that looked like something Harryhausen would’ve made back in the day, if the VFX technology of the time was equal to his vision.

The Cyclops was less verbose than I was expecting, but the Guillermo del Toro influence was strong and welcome. The whole sequence with Circe was deeply unsettling, with nauseating prosthetic effects and an outrageously bugfuck performance by Samantha Morton. The scene with the sirens is more psychological in its delivery, which makes sense. Likewise, Odysseus doesn’t really descend into the underworld, but he does talk with the dead in a way that focuses more on emotional/spiritual turmoil than spectacle.

(Side note: Apparently, the underworld is somewhere in southern France. Who knew?)

The Fall of Troy unfolds over multiple sequences, each one more grandiose than the last. Odysseus’ climactic massacre of the suitors is laughably overwrought, but fun to watch nonetheless. The Laestrygonians were loosely adapted, but this take is an exciting central highlight.

Then we have the cast. Naturally, with so many actors, some fare better than others. I was particularly disappointed with the choice to hire Zendaya — such a fiery and dynamic screen presence — when Athena doesn’t do much of anything except sit around and look pretty. Likewise, Calypso is such a pivotal figure in the story and Charlize Theron is such an accomplished actor, it feels like Theron should’ve had the chance to contribute more than screen presence. Mia Goth is likewise wasted. Corey Hawkins is really only there to be a sounding board against Robert Pattinson, ditto Himesh Patel against Matt Damon. And Elliot Page gets killed off pretty much immediately.

By contrast, Lupita Nyong’o gets a double-role, playing twin sisters Helen and Clytemnestra. They’re both played as achingly tragic figures, brimming over with grief and guilt over what happened in the Trojan War and its preamble. Anne Hathaway plays Penelope with the same kind of unhinged despair that got her an Oscar. Tom Holland plays Telemachus with the same kind of boyish charm and unlikely heroism that made him a household name. John Leguizamo is the film’s secret weapon, playing the loyal put-upon Eumaeus in a way that brings out the best in every other actor. Jon Bernthal capably plays Menelaus as a badass in charge like only he could. Robert Pattinson plays to the cheap seats as a shitheel, and it’s fun to watch.

Agamemnon’s face is never shown onscreen. I like the notion of keeping him unseen to project that air of mystery, and it makes good use of Benny Safdie’s skills as a voice actor. But that armor was laughably overdesigned. I know he’s supposed to look all tough and imposing, but seriously, he looks like a five-year-old boy’s idea of tough and imposing.

Then we’ve got Matt Damon in the role of Odysseus himself. What’s interesting is that Damon was the worst possible choice to play Odysseus for the exact same reason that made him so ideally suited to play this interpretation of the character. Damon is not cut out to play a great war hero, but the film goes to great lengths in showing how Odysseus was unprepared for the traumatic carnage that he directly caused with the ultimate act of perfidy (also known in the modern era as “a war crime”).

As if to hammer that point home, the film repeatedly leans on “Zeus’ Law”, dictating that hospitality must be shown to all, with everyone treating everyone else as if they may be a god in disguise. This draws a direct parallel between the Trojan Horse and Penelope’s suitors, both cases in which men take advantage of and betray their host’s sense of hospitality as means to an invasion. The difference, of course, is that Odysseus eventually kills the suitors as the Trojans should’ve killed the Greeks. And Odysseus himself would likely argue that he should’ve died in Troy, which adds a whole ‘nother layer.

Moreover, Damon cannot sell himself as a tactical genius, but he is top-notch at playing a smartass. And sure enough, this take on Odysseus is absolutely a smartass. For all my prior comments about Nolan, I was astounded to find that this whole take on “The Odyssey” comes down to the topic of pride.

Odysseus decides to take an alternate route home, and he ends up getting lost. He refuses to appeal to the gods, and his men die. Time and again, Odysseus — and the other characters, to varying extents — consistently mess everything up just as quickly as they get the bright idea that they know better than everyone else. It’s outright stated in the film that Odysseus ruins everything with his own compulsive need for control, his deep-seated urge to show he knows better than everyone else, and he only finally goes home when he gives himself over and lets fate/the gods/whatever take the wheel.

The odyssey itself is portrayed as a massive undertaking. It’s something so huge, so arduous, so time-intensive and painful and fatal, it might be better for Odysseus and his soldiers to simply give up and die, or make a new home somewhere else. Back on Ithaca, Penelope is facing a similar choice, refusing to back down despite all the pressures on her to simply give up and remarry already. Given Nolan’s history with increasingly huge budgets and his compulsive need for absolute creative control, it’s not hard to see where he’s coming from.

One thing I will say about The Odyssey is that it’s nowhere near as opaque as some of Nolan’s other works. Nobody’s going to walk out of this one asking what happened or what the point was. Of course it’s self-indulgent, but any three-hour movie inevitably is.

But is it a good movie? Well, it’s a long movie and densely packed. So there’s a lot in here that’s good, a lot that’s bad, a lot to like, and a lot to hate. To put it in less wishy-washy terms, let’s compare it to another recent Odyssey adaptation: The Return.

While Nolan spent three hours scrambling to cover the full width and breadth of the Homer saga, Uberto Pasolini and his team spent two hours specifically focusing on Odysseus’ return to Ithaca and its aftermath. Thus, while Matt Damon and Anne Hathaway did a decent job of portraying their characters over the course of twenty years, Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche were far more ideally suited to play the same characters at a more specific point in their lives. And sure, Nolan’s effort was much bigger on spectacle and scale, but Pasolini could really drill down deeper to develop a smaller set of characters and explore the same relevant themes to a degree that Nolan didn’t have the space for.

Sorry, but I prefer the leaner and meaner picture. Though I must give full credit to Christopher Nolan for delivering a fantastical historical epic on the scale of The Ten Commandments or Ben-Hur. You know, the kind of movies that Hollywood used to make, in between the time when Gone with the Wind took over the world and Cleopatra (1963) cost more than what was mathematically possible to recoup.

That said, I want to stress emphatically that the film is worth seeing at the time and place of your choosing. If you can’t afford the IMAX treatment, go with a standard viewing. If you want to enjoy it at home, to take a three-hour movie at your own pace, that’s totally valid. And if Nolan or anyone else looks down on you for the choice, fuck ’em.

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