M, 172 minutes
5 Stars
Review by © Jane Freebury
It’s a bold filmmaker who takes on something like this. He may already have Memento, The Dark Knight, Interstellar, Dunkirk and Oppenheimer to show he is no slouch at narrative complexity, compelling atmosphere and nuanced, relatable characters, but we were holding our breath.
It’s clear that versatile writer-director Christopher Nolan is in his element here too. His spectacular version of Homer’s epic story about the King of Ithaca, Odysseus (Matt Damon in grizzled beard), on his journey home from the Trojan War, reckoned to have taken place around three millennia ago, is awesome too.
It had taken ten years to retrieve Helen (Lupita Nyong’o) and restore her to husband Menelaus (John Bernthal) to end the war with Troy. It then took Odysseus, a general in the Greek forces, another ten years to find his way back to his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and adult son Telemachus (Tom Holland). As they wondered if he was ever coming home, mother and son tried to manage the unruly kingdom without a king.
Narrative complexity, compelling atmos and nuanced, relatable characters are not lost in the …
With a series of flashbacks and recollected memories, The Odyssey alternates between its narrative threads taking place in war, at home and on the high seas. It looks fabulous from the get-go with a brooding image of the statue of a rearing horse, partly sunken in the sand on a wide, sunny beach. Trojan warriors ride up to inspect it, despatching the helpless boy left outside to pass on the critical message that it is an offering to the goddess Athena for safe passage home for the departing Greeks.
It was, of course, a trick for the ages that led directly to the sack of Troy, a monumental ruse devised by the most gifted strategist among the Greek generals, Odysseus. Not a wooden construction on trundling wheels, or a siege machine that some archaeologists say did not exist at the time anyway, but a beautiful and worthy offering to the goddess of wisdom and the art of war.
Not many of the deities who appear in Homer’s epic poem appear, as Nolan has sensibly kept them out of the frame. Except for Athena (Zendaya), who makes regular appearances during Odysseus’s moments of introspection. The father of the gods, Zeus, who also wrote the rulebook on hospitality, has a big influence on things, as does the god of the sea, Poseidon, but the other gods and goddesses in Homer’s complete Iliad and Odyssey are absent here.
Big, bold treatment matching an epic, sweeping story for the ages
What a journey Odysseus embarks on. Under Agamemnon (Benny Safdie), commander of the Greek coalition, all the others manage to reach home years before Odysseus and his warriors. They head west on a thoroughly treacherous course dotted with obstacles instead. The fatal allure of sirens, a lotus-eating temptress, Calypso (Charlize Theron), a fierce enchantress, Circe (Samantha Morton), with a thing against men, and shadow armies of the dead, and that’s not all. At each encounter, Odysseus loses some more of his men. They had begun to believe, after a violent, heart-stopping encounter with the cyclops, Polyphemus (Bill Irwin), a son of Poseidon, that Odysseus has incurred the sea god’s wrath and they could never cross his domain safely again.
Is Odysseus a worthy leader of men, a decent and loyal husband and father? Didn’t he allow his curiosity about the world to drive him to take too many risks? Does he deserve the love and steadfastness of his patient wife? Turning all her dozens of suitors down, including the venomous Antinous (Robert Pattinson), and sticking to her weaving. Or the loyalty of his son?
For a big budget actioner, it is irony free and has instead some serious things to say about the catastrophic impact of war. There is little scene-setting or background to speak of on all these unfamiliar characters, mortal and immortal, which could have been a risky decision on the part of the filmmakers, but a classics education isn’t necessary here.
A version of the story of Odysseus and Penelope appeared in a small arthouse film called The Return two years ago. While it did retain the scene in which Penelope tests Odysseus on a special feature of their marriage bed, a scene that Nolan has omitted, it demonstrates how this epic, sweeping story for the ages does not need a sombre, pared-back adaptation, but the big, bold treatment it gets here.
Published in the Canberra Times (17.7.2026) and associated Australian Community Media mastheads. Also published on Rotten Tomatoes