THE ODYSSEY
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Reviewed by Jeremy Elwood
We live in strange times. When a movie from one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of this century, based on a 2700-ish year-old story, has drawn criticism from historians, highbrow academics and hatemongers before it’s even opened, the questions The Odyssey raises about the nature of civilisation feel timeless. Thankfully the film itself is an epic, in every sense of the word.
People have spent lifetimes trying to summarise the plot of Homer’s poem, but very simply put, it tracks Odysseus’s efforts to return home ten years after the Trojan War. Home is Ithaca, where his Queen Penelope is besieged by suitors hoping to claim the vacant throne, and his son Telemachus searches for word of his father’s fate. Their respective journeys are aided and ailed by interference from humans and Gods; elements of the story will be familiar to most, even if you weren’t entirely sure where they came from.
At the helm of this massive ship is Christopher Nolan, and the film belongs to him as much as it does to the source material. Nolan has a singular ability to balance spectacle and storyline across multiple timelines, and although the film opens slowly, once he hits his stride it rides out the storms with style. For fans of his earlier work, there’s something here for all of you. The explosive set-pieces of his Batman trilogy, the against-all-odds desperation of Dunkirk, the vast natural worlds of Interstellar and the complex webs of plot and time cast in Tenet or Inception. But the movie it shares the most with, in fact feels like a direct companion piece to, is Oppenheimer. Aside from employing the same colour palette and intense use of sound, both films focus on brilliant men coming to terms with the consequences of their own decisions, and the cost to those closest to them.
Both films also show that when Nolan calls, virtually all of Hollywood will answer. The cast features everyone from Zendaya to Charlize Theron, Jon Bernthal to Eliot Page, Mia Goth to Samantha Morton, many playing far smaller roles than their agents would usually permit – despite all of the online idiocy, Lupita Nyong’o is finely cast as Helen of Troy, but appears onscreen for a total of about 5 minutes.
Nolan seems to have a clear preference for understated performance, particularly from his leading men. Matt Damon, as Odysseus, brings a downplayed stoicism to the role, his thoughtful demeanour a believable counterpoint to his buffed-up physique, and, for almost all of the film, it works. However, as things draws to a surprisingly poignant and pointed finale, I’m genuinely divided on whether I wanted a deeper range from him, and others. There’s a level of emotional restraint from both Damon and Tom Holland as Telemachus that keep things grounded, but, given the stakes, border on underplayed – but I’m still in two minds as to whether more would have been too much.
Anne Hathaway walks that line far more confidently. Her Penelope is a woman trapped in her time, with a strength and passion that her insipid suitors, led by a suitably slimy Robert Pattinson, cannot imagine. Two other standouts are Himesh Patel as Odysseus’s loyal yet conflicted officer Eurylochus, and an almost unrecognisable John Leguziamo as the similarly long-suffering servant Eumaeus.
The real star power, though, comes from the director. As always, Nolan uses sound as much as vision to tell his story – I saw this at Auckland’s Imax cinema, and while the big screen was great, I would strongly recommend seeing The Odyssey somewhere with great audio. The sound of the ocean is a near-constant, from the lapping of peaceful waves to the ferocity of Poseidon’s storms. He plays a particularly neat trick around the call of the Sirens. The battle scenes are curiously bloodless, the violence symbolised rather than directly shown, yet still provide real context for Odysseus’s turmoil.
Perhaps the most striking success of this film is in its relevance. This starts with the thoroughly modern language (and accents) used throughout, one source of pre-release disquiet that does briefly jar, but quickly settles in, thanks to its consistency.
More crucially, Nolan recognises that this ancient tale carries deeply contemporary themes. The end of empires, the consequences of leadership, the contrast between the quiet courage of the ordinary and the fallibility of those we hold up as Gods – we may indeed live in strange times, but we are far from the first to do so.