The Odyssey Review: You Can't Go Home Again

I was genuinely unsure how I was going to feel about Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey when I got to my screening. None of the marketing had really wowed me, the online discourse about the casting exhausted me, and I am more ambivalent about Nolan’s work than a lot of others. But the film exceeded all of my expectations. The Odyssey is both an exceptional feat of filmmaking and storytelling, taking an ancient tale and making it a warning to modern audiences about the arrogance of assuming that danger only exists outside what you already know.

Nolan based his version of The Odyssey in part on Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation of the Homeric epic, so the language used is less formal and more modern than one might expect, but the decision works remarkably well. Large works like this can sometimes feel intimidating, and by allowing the spoken word to feel like what one is accustomed to, it makes the story more accessible to a wide audience, while still maintaining the integrity of the poem.

We meet Odysseus (Matt Damon) on an island with Calypso (Charlize Theron). He has forgotten why he is there, and much of the film retells the battle of Troy and his desire to get home. He left his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), and his son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), in Ithaca. After 20 years at sea, his home is overrun by suitors, hoping to become the new king, led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson). The goal is to protect Ithaca from the sea peoples, but without knowing who they are, any access to power will do.

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The Odyssey includes plenty of the monsters that you remember from your high school reading of the poem. We have the Cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin), the beguiling Sirens, and the giant Laestrygonians. The men also visit Circe (Samantha Morton) in one of the most disturbing moments of the film. But in each of these encounters, there is a deeper question being asked, leading to a third act that is absolutely mind-blowing.

The performances in The Odyssey are all fantastic. I wish that Lupita Nyong’o and Mia Goth had been used a bit more, but neither was a disappointment. Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Robert Pattinson were among my favorites, and Elliot Page as Sinon serves as the film’s moral compass with a beautiful performance. But I was utterly blown away by the tender, thoughtful John Leguizamo as Eumaeus, Odysseus’s blind servant.

In addition to an amazing cast and a genuinely powerful adaptation, Nolan has also created a tactile world that must be experienced in a theater. The use of practical effects makes The Odyssey feel like the events actually are a historical retelling rather than a piece of fiction from 3000 years ago.

Throughout The Odyssey, there is talk about xenia, or Zeus’ Law, a code of hospitality that reminds people that guests could be gods and should therefore be treated with the kindness you would show a deity. There is a similar idea in Christianity that people should show hospitality to strangers because they could be entertaining angels unawares. But regardless of whether other people are gods or angels, they’re people, and maybe that’s enough reason to treat others with kindness so we can make anywhere feel like home.

Rating: 5/5

This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on July 25, 2026.