7-ish Thoughts On The Odyssey

The other night, before watching The Odyssey, I had a dream that I saw The Odyssey. In this dream, I sat in my seat and watched the movie, and then I woke up. This is far from the first time I’ve had a dream like this. For instance, once I had a dream in which I went to see a movie, and I vividly remember watching a bunch of trailers in my sleep … and then I woke up. So, to be clear, my The Odyssey dream isn’t unusual, but it still feels appropriate to kick off this bedlam of thoughts.

The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan’s 13th movie, an adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic and a capper of sorts to all that Nolan’s dreamed up in his career. It brings back many of his acting troupe favorites, from Matt Damon to Anne Hathaway to Himesh Patel to Robert Pattinson to Elliot Page, while also introducing new stars to the Nolan repertoire, most notably Tom Holland, Zendaya and Charlize Theron.

His previous movies, from Oppenheimer’s treatise on regret to Interstellar’s fear of losing your family to Inception’s obsession with time escaping your grasp, are all influenced by the original story of The Odyssey (to be fair, most stories are), so it only feels right that Nolan (after his box-office and awards hit in Oppenheimer) would have the blank check and gravitas to attempt to tell one of the most noteworthy tales (and poems) in human history.

At the moment of writing this, not long after seeing the movie, I have a lot of random thoughts, ideas and takes, which is basically why I have this newsletter. So, I’ll share them with you and you can yell at me. As is tradition.

I’m planning on seeing The Odyssey again in IMAX 70MM in a month’s time—tickets are very, very, very hard to get—so things may change, but here’s where we stand after the first 173 minutes.

I’m a cold-blooded American male in my early 30s, so Christopher Nolan is obviously very important to me. The first time I saw Inception, I watched it immediately again. Not the following day, but seconds later. And Oppenheimer and Dunkirk are two 21st-century masterpieces. His other stuff, also pretty good. This is all to say that I went into this with high expectations.

The start of this movie, from Travis Scott’s bard to Tom Holland’s stupor, felt a bit jumbled and sort of messy. I get that the family ties are the backbone to the entire story, but the plot machinations and storytelling exposition dump of the prologue were pretty worrying.

Holland certainly improved as the movie went on (we’ll get into that more later), but he, in particular, felt mis-suited for Telemachus early on and a bit overwhelmed by Hathaway, John Leguizamo and Pattinson. To be fair, I think I’d have a panic attack and keel over if I was forced to act against any of them.

Once Odysseus’s story begins, everything settles into place. And yet, the introduction of the story felt almost tacked on in places. Maybe it’ll work better after knowing where everything’s leading.

Everything about The Odyssey’s marketing strategy has been to emphasize its bigness: You need to see this in IMAX, there are more extras than you can see on screen, the breadth of the story doesn’t stop. And yes, that’s all true, but it’s one thing to hear it and another thing to see it.

There’s a moment where Damon’s Odysseus and his horde are running away from [REDACTED] and the camera pans and there’s a trio of ships bobbing in the water from afar. This doesn’t seem like much until you remember that those are real ships floating along, all for a quick pan. And then the editing jumps away.

While many blockbusters are cutting corners, Nolan has always emphasized making things practically—well, within reason, of course. This movie was made for over $250 million and you see every cent of that on screen.

While many movies and studios are depending on artificial intelligence—just this week, Netflix admitted that around 300 of their titles use generative AI—it’s nice to see real human work and manpower create something of this size.

I know. Matt Damon is a very rich actor with all the might of Universal Studios behind him. I’m sure he had all the trainers, nutritionists and top-tier chefs available. Still, the man is 55 years old and has had his weight fluctuate consistently over the years depending on roles.

If I look like this at 31, let alone 55, we’re in a good place. Maybe I’ll go for the long white-ish beard too. Worth a shot.

The movie is broken up into vignettes of sorts to show Odysseus’s journey. Does he make it back home? Don’t want to spoil anything. Regardless, the movie jumped into second gear and third and then fourth (I don’t know anything about cars) on the island of Aeaea, spearheaded by Samantha Morton’s terrifying, spellbinding turn as Circe.

The scene is true body horror and perhaps the most startling of Nolan’s career, even if you know where things are going.

It’s interesting that Nolan, who usually steers away from blood and guts when he can, would make this scene as visceral as it is. He kinda has to, I guess, but still. It’s a lot. It’s also proof that a Christopher Nolan horror movie would go insane, at least in the Greg Gottfried household. I’ve said the same about Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson. Let the best filmmakers go full horror. The genre’s never been in a better place (at least monetarily; examples: Backrooms and Obsession). Don’t you want to see how Nolan can take those IMAX cameras and create something petrifying? I know I do.

I was originally going to do grades, but that feels too BuzzFeed-y, so instead, let’s just go through the performances.

Matt Damon: I mean, there’s a reason you cast this guy as Odysseus. He’s an everyman that people want to like, even when he’s doing monstrous things. A similar idea to his Oppenheimer character. He’s obviously great, especially in the final third.

Anne Hathaway: She’s having a career year between the success of The Devil Wears Prada 2, the thoughtful Mother Mary and the upcoming The End of Oak Street and Verity. She’s a rock in The Odyssey and able to do more than you’d initially expect, especially when compared to Nolan’s other leading female protagonists, who are too often sidelined to upset and/or dead wives. This feels a bit like the Emily Blunt Oppenheimer performance, where they kill in the moments they get, with one extra emotional scene to top it off.

Robert Pattinson: Perhaps I’m biased because Pattinson is one of my favorite living actors at this point… Anyway, he’s fantastic in this as a real piece of shit who’s both an evil worm and a scared child trying to make something of himself. I hope Pattinson works with Nolan forever.

Tom Holland: I think he made up for it in the final sequence, but I definitely found Holland to be the weakest part of the film, especially in the aforementioned opening act. He comes off a bit wooden at times, especially when attempting to give emotional dialogue. I feel like it’ll be a bit of a Rorschach test. If you like Holland, you’ll be fine. If you have doubts, those won’t change.

I don’t have time to go one by one. I mean, I probably do, but I don’t really want to. Instead, I want to point out my three favorite supporting performances:

Samantha Morton: Unreal and steals the movie for the few minutes she’s on screen. Part of my favorite stretch of The Odyssey and deserves all sorts of plaudits. She’s been great forever—you should watch Morvern Callar, if you have time—and continues that run in her first Nolan movie.

Himesh Patel: This is his second time working with Nolan, and I sincerely think (depending on the role) he should lead the next movie. He understands Nolan’s scope while also creating something of a partially-sidelined Eurylochus character, and I just find myself watching him when he’s on the big screen. Good time to mention that Station Eleven is perfect and streaming on HBO Max.

Elliot Page: Also his second time working with Nolan after Inception and is a pivotal character/plot point in the story for good reason. Has one standout scene that shapes the second half of the movie and delivers it with aplomb. Great to see him back. I’m sorry, I didn’t watch The Umbrella Academy.

Oh, also, they’re not actors, but I want to use this space to salute two of Nolan’s most critical collaborators at this point: composer Ludwig Göransson and editor Jennifer Lame. The score and editing may be the two best parts of the movie and are frequently utilized one on top of the other to keep everything humming along. Both of these artists won Oscars for Oppenheimer and I wouldn’t be surprised if they win again.

Lame has worked on those two Nolans, Midsommar, Hereditary, Frances Ha, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), Marriage Story and Manchester by the Sea, so we’re basically best friends at this point with how much time we’ve spent together.

I know this is based on a fictional work of literature. And with that said, I’m sure I wouldn’t make it in a mystical (or even non-mystical) Trojan War. I took a boxing class at Equinox a few weeks back and was trying to stretch my arm fully the entire following day. Even worse, I played squash and walked the next day around SoHo as if I was mauled by a lion, got up and then subsequently mauled by a second lion.

I know very little about modern-day vehicles. I would not last on a boat of any size. And I’m very particular about my meals and going for walks every day. Do not draft me into the war. I will abandon ship and move to Canada in a second.

Plus, there are always Gods threatening to strike you down. I’m already striking myself down enough.

If you’re not following this online (and good on you for having a life), The Odyssey was making idiots mad before it even came out.

I guess this is because Lupita Nyong’o is playing Helen of Troy, described as the most beautiful woman in the world, and many people are racist as hell and also dumb as rocks. I can’t imagine seeing Lupita Nyong’o and not thinking that she’s gorgeous. Just another repercussion of being a racist lunatic … you can’t see.

Also, I suppose they’re mad at Elliot Page playing a soldier, which is crazy to me since they think that Elon Musk is a human being and deserves to exist. But I guess some people are wrong about everything.

Anyway, some deeper spoilers here: the end of this movie puts the entire story of The Odyssey into a different, very relevant context about war and our part in it. Which is emphasized by good ol’ boy American Matt Damon as the warmongering protagonist. Unlike the original text, Odysseus has Oppenheimer-level regret about the chaos he wrought and the deaths that fall squarely on his soldiers. It appears that all of the destruction that followed in his wake (especially once you see Zendaya’s Athena and why she looks the way she does) has plagued him, and he needed to punish himself before he allowed himself to even think about heading home.

Nolan is always pretty mum about what his movies mean, but it’s pretty clear as an anti-war screed and a repudiation of the evils and absence of civility in our day-to-day world. Quite simply, this movie desires a world we actually want to live in.

This is obviously going to make the idiots mad as it’s aimed right at them. Well, if they can even understand what it’s about, which … to be honest, they probably won’t.

With that said, I’m really excited to see it all again, especially with the ending in the back of my mind. Hope you see it too. And if you’ve read all of this without seeing it, I guess I’ll take it. Even if you’re insane.