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The Odyssey

Christopher Nolan is one of the few active directors who can entice punters to the cinema (along with Denis Villeneuve), and they've come out in droves for his latest, a retelling of Homer's The Odyssey. Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, the king of Ithaca who is co-opted to join his overlord, Agamemnon, in his attack on Troy. After near 10 years of siege, culminating in the Trojan Horse event, the silly bastard then decides to take the scenic route home, and gets plumb lost.

What follows is a technically brilliant rendering of mythical nonsense made to feel real. Odysseus's mini-fleet of three ships and maybe 100 (?) men run into several hardships, notably the Cyclops; a small army of huge men called the Laestrygonians; the sorceress, Circe; and some salacious sea nymphs. These set pieces are fantastic, especially the Cyclops (played by TARS voice from Interstellar, Bill Irwin), and Circe's cottage, where she has a way with greedy menfolk. Samantha Morton is almost best on ground in her short screen time.

I say almost because I was happily surprised by Tom Holland's turn as Telemachus, son of Odysseus and Penelope (Anne Hathaway). Serves me right for seeing him as only as Spidey, he's clearly got more range than that. All the performances are judged just about right - Zendaya is quietly powerful as Athena, Odysseus's conscience; Hathaway has some emoting to do as the stoic wife, holding things together at home; and Damon does the business as antiquity Jason Bourne. Even John Leguizamo is unusually fine as Eumaeus, and the 'controversy' about the casting of Elliot Page and Lupita Nyong'o was, as expected, all piss and wind. They're both great in smallish parts. Only Robert Pattinson's Antinous threatened to derail the enterprise, with his panto screaming and farcical gestures in the final scene.

Thematically, Nolan suggests that the underhanded invasion of Troy (massive wooden horse, Greeks bearing gifts and all that) was the defining historical incident that put us all on the track to where we are now. In the shit. In essence, thou shall not abuse the law of Zeus, or the social contract - carry oneself with dignity, not cowardice, or duplicity. A heinous act repeated since, as for example, at the Red Wedding in Game of Thrones. There's a suggestion that the impending attack on Ithaca by the 'Sea people' has been brought on by this transgression at Troy, and that as far as propriety and society goes, all bets are now off. Odysseus even theorises that he hasn't been able to return home for nearly 20 years because, deep down, he didn't want to.

Like all of Nolan's work, this is filmically peerless, the only choice to make is how the content resonates with the viewer (I appreciated Oppenheimer, but wasn't really that taken with it, even though I understand that it's amazing). The Odyssey works as a 3 hour epic because the structure is fragmented - Calypso (Charlize Theron) drawing memories from the flower-addled mind of Odysseus preps the thrilling set pieces, the attack on Troy taking top spot for tension.

Of course, this material might not work in most hands but Nolan has the style to make it succeed, he's meticulous, and crucially knows what to do with the abundance of cash available to him. He's also very good at embedding call-backs into the script - I won't mention them but there are two very clever ones that I recall in this. And he's surrounded himself with the usual experts, composer Ludwig Göransson, cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, and editor Jennifer Lame. Not a bad roll call of talent.

So, The Odyssey - very nearly an all-time classic, save for one or two issues that resign it to the merely brilliant bracket. Honestly though, I think it's actually grown on me since I saw it last week. Maybe time for a re-watch?

See also:

Let's revisit Nolan's catalogue - two of my favourites are Inception (2010) and Dunkirk (2017) but the guy knows how to make a film. He hasn't really made a dud yet.

Stills and trailer © Universal.

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