...more fearsome creatures, more prophecies, more visions, more dire warnings, more close calls, until we realize this sort of thing can continue indefinitely.” — Roger Ebert
No, Roger didn’t come back from the grave to turn his legendary critical eye towards The Odyssey. That quote was actually from his review of Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring, another blockbuster film adapted from a landmark work of fiction. But it could just as easily apply to this Christopher Nolan extravaganza.
Before we get too deep in the woods — I was dialed in for the near-three-hour duration, which is a compliment in itself and more than I could say for Fellowship (1). The Odyssey is a gorgeous-looking picture. The seas churn with menace. Odysseus’ boats R-U-M-B-L-E through the water. We feel the existential dread when he and his soldiers realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew, and repeatedly flee for the shores. (And there is a lot of fleeing here.)
Ultimately, however, I’m guessing this is a film that, for yours truly, will likely fall in the same strata as his Batman trilogy — slick, A-grade Hollywood productions that captivated, yet left me with few lasting memories (2).
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Full disclosure: I have never read The Odyssey, a fact which I suspect will place me in a camp of at least 95% of the moviegoing public. It shouldn’t matter, right? Neither should the faithfulness to the source material. The film should stand on its own merits. Yes, it’s well-documented how Nolan has said that he based his screenplay off Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of The Odyssey… with Wilson being critical of the finished product. Having not read her version (nor anyone else’s), I can’t speak to any comparison, except to say that I’m entirely unsurprised. My advice? If you love a movie that’s based on a written work, then by all means, dive into the novel for additional exposition. But if your introduction to a tale is via a book that you adore… then don’t buy a ticket for its cinematic adaptation. You’re only setting yourself up for disappointment (3).
Steven Spielberg has talked about Raiders of the Lost Ark being an homage to the Saturday morning serials that he grew up watching, but I can’t think of another adventure film that was more like a serial than The Odyssey. This picture is a string of impressive set pieces recollecting our hero’s ramshackle decades-long attempt to return to his kingdom of Ithaca, broken up with interludes featuring a present-day, amnesia-stricken Odysseus (Matt Damon, channeling a bit of Jason Bourne here) and nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron) on a beach that seemingly exists beyond time and space.
Cyclops! Circe! Armored Giants! Sirens! Whirlpools! For the most part, Odysseus’ obstacles weren’t exactly foes to be defeated but instead eluded, albeit with a rapidly-dwindling crew and fleet (4). Every so often, Nolan circles back to the homestead in Ithaca, where Odysseus’ lonesome wife Queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) is sequestered as a quasi-prisoner of a horde of suitors led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson). Said throng is eager to move Odysseus’ status from MIA to KIA, and seize the throne by wedding Penelope and bypassing her son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), whom they would like to see conveniently erased from the line of succession.
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The voyage of Odysseus? Sign me up. But life back at the ranch? Telemachus’ search for details about his father are hiccups interrupting Odysseus’ neat-o adventures. Meanwhile, Hathaway is a wonderful actress, but there’s simply not much for her to do here, save for looking forlorn while perpetually weaving a burial shroud in seclusion.
Ditto with Antinous. He’s the last obstacle to be vanquished during the climax of the film, a free-for-all melee between Odysseus (having returned in disguise) and the legions of malevolent suitors. But Pattinson’s role speaks to a bigger issue in the story: the lack of a convincing arch-nemesis. Antinous would make for a rather underwhelming Big Bad, given his lack of screen time, the absence of grand machinations, and the fact that he’s no threat to Odysseus in single combat. The gods are largely to blame for Odysseus’ troubles, after he invited punishment upon himself by “violating Zeus’ law” during the sacking of Troy (5).
This segues into a bigger issue with the film — the fact that we don’t have a true Hero’s Journey here. Odysseus’ original decision to take up arms against Troy wasn’t part of some noble crusade, a la William Wallace in Braveheart. He was a bannerman answering the call of his lord, and committed transgressions in the pursuit of a greater goal. So… maybe something more akin to Platoon? But without Oliver Stone’s deep dive into the moral complexities of warfare, which would be awfully tough to shoehorn into this sort of adventure film.
Yes, the more we proceed here, the worse this film sounds! Er… remember how I mentioned that the film truly is a dazzling production? The Odyssey opens with the title card of "In a time of apparent magic…" and much of the journey made a True Believer out of me. The late special-effects legend Ray Harryhausen would be proud to see the cyclops that Nolan unleashes on screen, among other macabre supernatural forces.
But when Odysseus sails off with Penelope into self-imposed exile at the conclusion of the film, it all feels a bit wanting. Who was this man? What drove him besides guilt? Could we easily imagine other actors in these roles, and if so, does that speak to some sort of lacuna in this would-be epic?
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(1) I tried on two occasions to make it through Fellowship but failed, which mirrored my attempts to read the Lord of the Rings series when I was 12 or so. Despite being a kid who was big into Dungeons & Dragons, I bailed pretty quickly on the books. Purists may snicker, but after reading the Dragonlance trilogy (written a half-century later than LOTR), Tolkien’s tales seemed curiously dry and devoid of charm. It’s the Citizen Kane conundrum, in that it becomes tougher and tougher to appreciate trailblazing works with each passing generation.
(2) I’m not a Christopher Nolan fanboy by any stretch. Inception left me entirely underwhelmed, and Oppenheimer was one of the most frustrating theatrical experiences I’ve had in recent memory. But Following and Memento? Memento in particular was inspired genius.
(3) To this day, I’ve refused to see The Shawshank Redemption, simply because I loved Stephen King’s novella so much. Flipping this around, I’ve only encountered three books that were worse than their Hollywood counterparts:
— A Clockwork Orange: Besides the fact that Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation was an A+ mesmerizing Horrorshow (pun intended), the “Nasdat” lingo used in the book was a bit dense. Easy call to ditch it for the screenplay.
— Ghost World: The fact that Daniel Clowes’ disjointed comics were shaped into a coherent, heartfelt narrative was nothing short of amazing. However, Clowes later said that “the actual film itself is very different from the script we wrote,” so I’m guessing the credit here goes to director Terry Zwigoff.
— The Natural: What sort of sadist would have Roy Hobbs strike out and die in the final scene? Yes, I just displayed solidarity with Jane Campion in this very space two weeks ago about the finale of The Piano, but c’mon! This is baseball!
(4) Samantha Norton steals the show here as the chilling Circe, whose magic nearly lures much of the crew to their doom, before Odysseus arrives to save the day.
(5) “Zeus’ Law,” mentioned repeatedly in the film, is apparently an ancient Greek maxim that strangers are to be welcomed with hospitality, and violations risk incurring the wrath of the gods. We are certain that gods exist in this world (for one, Athena repeatedly makes her presence known to Odysseus), but it’s sort of a strange code of honor to enforce in an age of constant warfare and all manners of sinister creatures, no?
So… that damn Trojan Horse. It’s an iconic piece of lore, for sure. And there has to be some suspension of disbelief with pictures like this. But jeez, people! We’re supposed to buy this gambit? That a whole squad of soldiers jammed themselves inside this structure, head to toe, with extremely limited air and no food or water for days on end, on the off-chance that the opposing army would find it and employ hundreds of workers to drag it into town?