At this point there’s probably little that I could say about the Odyssey that would change your mind one way or the other. I have seen the most diverse opinions on this film that I can think of in the last 5 years or so. On the Lambcast we had one or two people who were enthusiastic, one person who is moderately positive on the film and one person who outright thought it was terrible. These are generally well informed people and so the wide variety of opinions seems to suggest that a lot of what influences people about this movie has less to do with the filmmaking and everything to do with personal perspective.

Myself I was only vaguely familiar with the story of Odysseus and his journey back from the Trojan War. I must have watched an earlier version somewhere because so much of the story is familiar, and I doubt that that is simply because I remembered it from my sophomore year in high school. My point of view is probably strongly influenced by the fact that I respect Christopher Nolan as a filmmaker and I have been enthusiastic about every other film that he’s made so far in his career. I can’t say that the Odyssey is his best film, I’m not even sure it’s his most ambitious, but it does have a broader scope than most of his other movies and has a lot of those elements of a travelog that makes historical epics seem so interesting.

I’ll start with what I think is the best thought out segment of the movie, and that’s the insertion of the Greek soldiers inside the walls of Troy through the subterfuge of a gift horse statue. Even people who have never read The Odyssey or unfamiliar with its companion piece The Iliad, are likely to know the story of the Trojan Horse in which a small platoon of Greek soldiers hides inside a massive figure of a horse left for the Trojans as a gift by seemingly departing Greek troops. Once inside the walls of Troy the soldiers come out, open the gates and let in the host of Greek soldiers who have returned to the city under the cover of a moonless night. The horse in this movie looks like something the Trojans would actually want to have in their Temple to commemorate the end of the war. It’s actually a sculpted wooden figure assembled from the Timbers of the ships that the Greeks left in pieces on the shores of the Trojan Empire. It doesn’t look like a creaky piece of junk furniture but rather a statue put together by artisans that looks beautiful and has been polished to a degree that it will reflect the sunlight or the moonlight. The thing that makes Nolan’s telling of the story so much better is that we see inside the horse as Odysseus and his fellow Warriors struggle not to drown in the high tide, crush one another as they await their chance to strike, and try to remain silent when the horse is being moved or probed with swords. The Trojans are portrayed as being much less naive and simply not as thorough as they might have been. The trick is accomplished but it requires the pack of soldiers to endure close quarters with human waste, no real supplies, and only a hope that their trick will work.

One of the ways the Greeks try to ensure that the trick is accepted as a gift is by leaving a soldier behind to explain the purpose to the Trojans when they discover the statue. Sinon has not been told what the figure is, and dies for having the audacity to have remained behind to tell the tale. Here is one of the points of disagreement that we had in our discussion on the film: this Soldier is played by the transgendered actor / actress Elliott / Ellen Page. One of the guests on the show said that it was the best performance in the film, but Paige looks like a hundred pounds of nothing in comparison to the other soldiers / actors in the scenes. The bravery that is conveyed on the screen has more to do with the willingness of somebody of that stature to appear in this role when they are dwarfed by the other performers on the screen. Nolan has loyalty to his cast of actors, and having used Page before seems to have felt obligated to cast the performer in the film in spite of the obvious misplacement.

In my mind the best performance was by Robert Pattinson, playing Antonius, the lead suitor of Odysseus’s wife Penelope. He is an unctuous , condescending youth who takes advantage of Zeus’s law about courtesy and treatment of strangers. He along with dozens of other suitors treat Odysseus’ home as their own while mocking the son of their host, in order to provoke a fight that would justify their own violence. I’m not sure how the structure of the original Odyssey works but here we continuously move back and forth between the Journey of Odysseus and his men and the travails of his family. 

In the adventure where Odysseus and his men are captured by the Cyclops, we are denied the dialogue that is featured in the original story. This Cyclops is portrayed as nearly silent, speaking only near the end of the episode when the sailors and soldiers are making good their escape. The visualization of the single eye makes it look more like this is a birth defect rather than a creature who evolved with a single eye. I found that a little distracting, although the image is creative and frankly quite disturbing. It is however not as disturbing as the episode when Circe the witch on her own private island, turns Odysseus’s troop into a herd of pigs. This was visually the most creative moment in the movie, and the one most likely to give you nightmares. Samantha Morton plays Circe and she is a sympathetic figure in spite of her malevolent acts toward the soldiers.

Calypso is represented on screen by Charlize Theron, who is largely wasted providing exposition but not much more. Matt Damon plays our central figure Odysseus, who doubts his own heroism and as presented seems much less the leader than has been seen in previous versions of the story. Still he is a stalwart presence and he has several emotional scenes that have the appropriate impact on the story and the audience. Again for context, people on the podcast seem to dismiss his performance, but I’m willing to bet that he’ll be nominated and maybe even be the favorite for the Oscars next year.

Tom Holland plays the son of Odysseus and Penelope, and at first he appears to be feckless, but as the story goes on his performance gets more authentic. John Leguizamo is the wise herdsman left by Odysseus in charge of the livestock,  and 20 years later nearly blind, is another standout in a supporting role. Maybe it’s just the fact that he cares for the dog that is holding on to its life and in the hopes of his master’s return, that makes him an incredibly sympathetic character.  The fact that Antonias kicks the dog, reinforces the notion that we should hate him. Anne Hathaway is very sympathetic as Penelope who has to convey her distraught in concealment while seeming to be strong on the outside.

The film is 3 hours long but I never felt its length and that’s another testament to the work of Christopher Nolan. The movie is spectacularly shot in IMAX and I saw a presentation on an IMAX screen as well as a 70 mm screening. It’s clear that the film wants to be a contemporary epic like Lawrence of Arabia. However great it looks though, it never reaches the emotional depths of that 1960s Epic, and although I think there is a very good theme about the morality of how we treat our enemies, it never leaves the same impression that a film like Lawrence did