There was an audible collective sigh of relief throughout the theatre when the intermission finally arrived during ‘The Odyssey’, a cinematic tradition that has largely disappeared in the West. With a runtime approaching three hours, Indian audiences should be grateful the practice still survives. And if I had to sum up Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey’ in a single sentence: the first half had me checking my watch in boredom, but the final hour left me in tears as Odysseus approaches closer home.
Much like Homer’s epic poem, Nolan’s The Odyssey picks up years after the Trojan War and follows the legendary Greek king Odysseus (Matt Damon) as he embarks on his perilous journey home to Ithaca. Back home, his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) has spent nearly two decades waiting for his return, all while fending off ambitious suitors who presume Odysseus is dead and see his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) as an obstacle to the throne.
For viewers unfamiliar with Homer’s The Odyssey, Christopher Nolan’s adaptation succeeds in making the ancient Greek epic easy to follow, although some might still feel lost when it comes to some of the legendary figures of the tale. Beyond that, however, given the immense anticipation, star-studded cast, and one of history’s greatest adventure stories already serving as its blueprint, the film rarely feels as awe-inspiring as it ought to. Rather than elevating Homer’s timeless tale (although maybe that’s simply not possible), Nolan mostly settles for illustrating it.
When Odysseus and his crew unwittingly trap themselves inside the cave of Polyphemus, the one-eyed giant, the effect feels underwhelming: the creature looks neither real or fantastical. The film’s strongest supernatural sequence comes later, when Odysseus journeys to the edge of the world to seek counsel from the dead, but even then I couldn’t help thinking that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves delivered a more inventive conversation with the deceased. Even the sirens, one of Greek mythology’s most iconic creatures, are reduced to shadows, silhouettes and distant voices, as Nolan repeatedly opts for restraint. For all of his technical prowess, the film rarely improves upon Homer’s source material; more often than not, it leaves things to the viewer’s imagination.
The theatre was packed, and I half expected the rows of college students around me to erupt into cheers, whistles, or applause whenever the film delivered one of its big moments. Surprisingly, that never happened. In fact, I’ve seen audiences be far more animated during films like The Fantastic Four and Evil Dead Rise, neither of which I even caught on opening weekend. The loudest cheering I’ve ever experienced in a theatre was, rather ironically, for Tom Holland’s Spider-Man: No Way Home and, more recently, Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – Infinity Castle. For a film of The Odyssey’s scale, pedigree and expectation, the silence felt telling.
Among the sprawling ensemble of ‘The Odyssey’, only Anne Hathaway and Matt Damon leave a lasting impression. Hathaway brings quiet resilience and dignity to Penelope, whose unwavering faith in her husband’s return becomes the film’s emotional anchor. Damon, meanwhile, gives Odysseus a compelling weariness. Having devised the Trojan Horse and witnessed unimaginable bloodshed, he carries the burden of victory like a curse, almost as though he no longer believes he deserves to make it home. Yet he also remains capable of brutality, looting and pillaging in the name of survival while insisting that nothing will stand between his men and Ithaca. Damon captures the heroism, hypocrisy, exhaustion, and repentance of a man shaped by war.
Tom Holland convincingly plays Telemachus as a young man caught between boyhood and adulthood, desperate to live up to the father he barely remembers. Robert Pattinson is deliciously hateful as the scheming Antinous, but his limited screen time prevents him from ever feeling like the formidable threat he should have been. Charlize Theron makes the most of her brief appearance as Calypso, effortlessly commanding every scene she’s in as the seductive goddess determined to keep Odysseus from ever returning home.
Despite Nolan attempting to recast ‘The Odyssey’ as an anti-war story, dwelling on the horrors of conquest, plunder, vengeance and senseless bloodshed, what ultimately lingers is something far simpler: a love story. It’s the story of a wife who refuses to stop waiting, a father desperate to return to his family, and a son who has grown up hearing songs about a father he can scarcely remember. Even though Penelope and Telemachus don’t know whether Odysseus is still alive, his legend echoes across kingdoms through oral tales celebrating the man who helped bring about the fall of Troy.
Even without the gods, monsters, witches and curses, Homer’s tale would remain just as moving because its emotional core has never been the fantasy. Odysseus could have been an ordinary soldier undertaking a perilous journey across oceans to return to his family, and it would still have been every bit as powerful. That’s precisely why the final act is so cathartic. not because of anything Christopher Nolan adds to the Odyssey, but because Homer already wrote one of the greatest homecoming stories ever told.
Rating for ‘The Odyssey’: 3 stars on 5.
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