The Odyssey – Musings on the Movie

I saw The Odyssey with friends this weekend, and figured I’d throw my thoughts out there. As context, I haven’t read the original myth in a few years, so my memories of it are hazy. I was neither stunned at the movie’s magnificence nor appalled at how it butchered the original myth. With how many reviews are going around for this one, including many by those who are more intimately familiar with the myth than me, this likely won’t be super profound or original. I thought Nolan made some really smart choices, and some odd ones.

However, my main takeaway is that this should have been a single season TV show, and that the Movie format hindered Nolan more than anything else. Also, if we could get Connor Storie in an adaptation of Song of Achilles, that would be great.

Let’s start with the big thing that people have been obsessed with: this movie living as an adaptation instead of a faithful retelling. While a lot of the core elements of the story remain the same, there’s quite a big shift in thematic focus to conform with modern storytelling sensibilities. Considering the Odyssey we know (both in translation and Ancient Greek) are both adaptations of something even older, I don’t think this is a bad thing.

The biggest shift here is from Odysseus as a complicated man (stolen shamelessly from Wilson) to a much more modern hero. In the original myth, Odysseus does not conform to our modern standards of morality at all. In the original, he cheats on his wife multiple times, brutally murders his slaves (yes they are slaves, not servants) after returning home, and is very willing to lie, cheat, and steal to achieve his goals. It is a much more Greek conception of a hero than an American one, and Nolan distanced himself greatly from the original myth.

I can accept many of these changes as an attempt to make the story more palatable to modern audiences. In these cases, however, it behooves the media to acknowledge that. Most modern retellings do great with this. Circe comes to mind as an example of where Madeline Miller took broad strokes to reimagine Circe as a character in an attempt to add depth and meaning to her story, and to update it for a modern audience. However, I think few who read Circe, even those unfamiliar with the original myth, are unaware that significant changes have been made. I think The Odyssey tries to present itself as a more pure retelling of the myth, simply with modern language and storytelling techniques.

I can accept that a more ‘faithful’ version of the myth likely would have been less financially successful, and I’m at peace with the core decision to rework those portions of his characters. Would I be interested in a more complex take on Odysseus? Absolutely. Did Nolan’s version manage to pull on my heartstrings at the end of the movie when he and Penelope were reunited at last? Also very much yes. Nolan’s attempt to push into the fall of Troy as a more symbolic loss of culture is also a choice that I’m okay with; he linked it nicely with the Law of Zeus (though I illogically hated that phrasing and kind of wish they’d just stuck with xenia, even though it would have felt out of place. The Law of Zeus just felt so cringey). I think the changes generally enhanced the Ithaca storyline, and framing Odysseus’s journey as flashbacks while talking with Calypso helped shift the story’s emphasis to home in a successful way.

The disappointing parts for me were Odysseus’s actual travels. I just felt a little bored during most of the ‘stops’ that the crew made along the way. None got enough time or attention to have any thematic depth, and I spent a good chunk of the movie feeling bored. I have a strong aversion to stories that are little more than ‘go here, things happen, go somewhere else, things happen’ and I was feeling that strongly. I didn’t feel Odysseus’s growing desperation, nor that various escapades revealed much about him. Even the growing mutiny against his leadership felt underbaked. This is where I feel like the production would have worked better as a TV show than movie.

At 3 hours, there wasn’t enough time to develop the Ithaca storyline, the fall of Troy storyline, and Odysseus’s journey. The first two were handled adequately for me. Actually, I really liked what they did with Helen and her sister, and thought it was a great addition. The journey itself felt like throwaway scenes in what should have been the main attraction. Circe’s island was the only one that I found acceptable in the least – and appropriately horrifying – but even it had a lot more juice to squeeze that could have pushed it to something even better. The rapid shifts between episodes of the journey also led to the cutting of some very iconic moments. Why on earth would you remove what is possibly the single most iconic moment from the myth? They cut the Nobody scene from the Cyclops encounter! It wouldn’t have even been hard to cut out a minute from the rest of that episode to make room for it. I think this was part of a shift to a more traditional hero storyline, but it pissed me off.

I was … pleasantly surprised by the casting? I came in worried that a suite of A-Listers was going to make the story feel generic and boring. I still hold to that idea, and think the story could have used some fresh blood. Anne Hathaway and Matt Damon both exceeded my expectations here. Tom Holland and Zendaya were just as disappointing as I imagined. With Zendaya though, I can’t help but think it wasn’t her fault, since they basically just asked her to recreate what she did in Dune. Athena was … weird and disjointed, totally unlike the amoral god she should have been. The fact that the other gods didn’t even make appearances was also odd. Either go all-in on the gods or leave them out, because Athena added nothing to the movie and was actively distracting for me.

Overall, the movie was a visual feast. As a story I thought it was a bit hollow, but that’s kind of how I feel about most of the movies I see. I actively avoid the more intense and psychological films. I much prefer that in books than visuals. I’m glad I saw The Odyssey in theaters, but don’t think I’ll watch it again. Maybe if I use it in a high school English class.