Manisha Ail (Twitter | Instagram)
Disclaimer: This Odyssey review contains minor spoilers
I have been in love with Christopher Nolan’s ability to weave a cinematic tale since I first watched The Prestige. His style of cinematic narration embraces wishful immersion. It drags the viewer, however unwittingly, into his story-verse, not simply as a spectator but as someone with stakes. The Dark Knight had me sympathising with the Joker by the time it ended; that’s some crackerjack storytelling! My heightened expectations of this filmmaker were probably why I felt a bit hollow as the credits started to roll at the end of his much-touted The Odyssey.
I was not familiar with Homer’s original poem, its book version, or any Greek mythology before I watched the film (which was fortunate, as those folks had a way stronger reaction to the movie than I did). Like most people, all I knew about what preceded Odysseus’ voyage could be encapsulated by the six words the bard extolling Zeus’ Law chanted in the movie’s opening scene: a face, a fleet, a war, a man, a thought, and a trick. I half-expected a heroic, nautical Greek adventure with magical creatures. What I got was a study in PTSD, as our hero literally guilt-tripped via five islands on his way home from war. Nolan’s Odysseus was a ball of self-inflicted anguish, who sorely regretted his role in the Trojan War in its aftermath. I admired the intention of this approach, though its execution fell short, the final product a bland, colourless story, which left me strangely unmoved.
I wish I was exaggerating my level of disconnection with Nolan’s Odysseus. I was honestly indifferent to what was happening to him and his men even as I watched the cyclops cannibalise his shipmates or Cersei turn them into sheep. I wasn’t even rooting for him to reach Ithaca. The only characters who roused any emotion in me were the wives in the story, trapped as they were on their own figurative islands by their respective husbands, Penelope by her loyalty to Odysseus and their son, Helen as Menelaus’ exalted prize of war, and Clytemnestra by her hatred of Agamemnon. I was rooting for Clytemnestra as she killed her husband, the only one of the three who was willing and able to act upon her justified rage.
I realised that Nolan relied heavily on the shock value of the revelation of his hero’s guilt to sell his story. And that didn’t impact if the viewer had already condemned his hero guilty. To be fair, maybe the story arc impacted an American or Western audience as intended. From the point of view of an Indian (millennial) brought up since childhood on a healthy diet of Karmic action and consequence, Odysseus and his men merited every trial they suffered. They didn’t deserve a happy ending. Odysseus had tricked the Trojans, who accepted and brought home a gift in good faith, only to be betrayed and destroyed. Whether it’s called Zeus’ Law or Atithi Devo Bhava, when you break with fundamental morality, the universe has a right to bite you in the keister.
My commentary does not include the stellar acting performances or the realistic cinematography, compelling enough to make me sit through nearly three hours of a story I did not enjoy. No one but Matt Damon could have played this version of Odysseus, a stricken general grappling with the moral consequences of his actions, a Dom Cobb who preferred to linger in the dreamworld rather than face reality. Anne Hathaway’s portrayal of Penelope was pitch perfect, though I would have appreciated more of a glimpse of how she held Ithaca together for twenty years on her lonesome as she raised a son (bet she wasn’t just slow-knitting a blanket for the duration). Robert Pattinson’s Antinous personifies avarice in every frame. Tom Holland’s Telemachus was, however, a reminder of my wish for the actor to branch out and play more adult roles now.
The Odyssey is a decent movie that viewers will enjoy in IMAX. My disappointment in watching the movie is subjective, a byproduct of my expectations of Nolan, who I consider above all to be a stellar storyteller. For a mythical adventure story to have left less of an impact in a cinematic rendition than it does in a simple telling is just more of a miss than a hit in my book.
Review by Manisha Ail
A doctor by profession and a writer by choice. Manisha was published as one of the winners of Write India season 1 and holds a secret love for poetry too. She can be reached at missilemyra@gmail.com
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