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THE ODYSSEY
Director: Christopher Nolan
Writer: Christopher Nolan
Cast: Matt Damon, Tom Holland, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya, Charlize Theron
Christopher Nolan goes god mode.
Even at his most intimate, Christopher Nolan has always been a filmmaker working on a far larger scale than anyone else in the game. While his films have always dealt with internal conflict and personal themes, even his smaller, more confined earlier efforts like Following and Memento would find themselves painted upon the biggest of conceptual canvases.
From Inception to Interstellar via The Dark Knight, Nolan has built his reputation on pushing the scale and scope of his projects further and further with every passing film. Hell, even when he delves into the intensely complex mind of J. Robert Oppenheimer for what could be considered his most personal effort to date, it would somehow grow to also become his broadest and boldest.
As such, and after the unprecedented success of Oppenheimer afforded him the leeway to do so, Christopher Nolan took on undoubtedly his biggest and broadest challenge to date – an adaptation of Homer’s ‘Odyssey’, one of the oldest and most revered written works ever in human history. However, with such epic scale comes an epic responsibility, and all eyes are now firmly on Nolan to deliver on another level entirely, all while simultaneously telling what is an innately intimate story of survival and redemption.
After the Trojan War, Odysseus (Matt Damon), king of Ithaca, embarks on a decade-long journey home, facing relentless trials that test his courage, leadership, and humanity. As he and his dwindling crew confront storms, mythical creatures, and vengeful gods, Odysseus struggles with the consequences of war, pride, and the choices that have defined his life. Meanwhile, in Ithaca, his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) fights to protect their kingdom from ambitious suitors, while their son Telemachus (Tom Holland) searches desperately for news of his missing father.
As epic and awe-inspiring as Matt Damon’s forearm veins, it’s safe to say The Odyssey is everything you could possibly want from a Christopher Nolan interpretation of the legendary ancient poem – and then some. Physically and visually, the film feels just as beefed up as you’d expect from such an enormous story of gods, monsters, war, and world-spanning voyages, yet Nolan has gone above and beyond the call of duty here by cranking the scale up to eleven while rooting absolutely everything in his unflinching filmmaking ethos of unwavering authenticity and tangible technical advancement.
Swept along by a Ludwig Göransson score that swings like a sword from intricate and spine-tingling to breathtakingly bone-rattling, Nolan’s majestic approach thoroughly engulfs us in his inimitable style and the gargantuan scope of the story in a way that most directors dare dream of. From the pure horror of a cave-dwelling, human munching cyclops to the legendary wooden horse buried deep in a Troy beach, and everything in between, this is event cinema precision engineered to take your breath away, and Christopher Nolan pulls out every stop to do so while never once forgetting the importance of ensuring his story is as broad and as accessible as possible.
With one of the most influential stories ever told as its foundation, it’s unsurprising that The Odyssey is long and winding, skating as it does across time and place to follow the fortunes of both Odysseus and Telemachus across various locations and timelines, and the result sees Christopher Nolan in his most expansive mood to date. Sure, its bulky 173 minute run time will challenge your bladder to the extreme, and the first half an hour takes a little time to get going, however, The Odyssey never wastes a second of its duration, always ensuring that visuals, emotions, and character do the enormity of the story justice and fully justify its titanic size.
With Nolan’s clear reverence for Ray Harryhausen coming to the fore and resisting any urge there may have been to make this a green screen mess, Nolan ensures that, while of course CGI is needed to embellish certain aspects, The Odyssey looks and feels as tangible as it can possibly be while never shying away from the story’s intrinsic fantasy elements. With every fibre of his being, Nolan has ensured that his film feels real in the most fantastical of ways, simultaneously managing to honour the ancient source material while layering on a huge helping of Clash of the Titans and Jason and the Argonauts, before threading it through with an energy and an aura all of its own.
Backed up by an absolutely enormous star-studded ensemble cast that somehow manages to ensure The Odyssey feels even more epic than it already was, Matt Damon may not appear like your average Odysseus on first impressions, yet it doesn’t take long before he makes the role his own. Blending pure vein-bulging physicality, fist-pumping heroism, and a beautifully mournful, regretful fragility, Damon positively revels in the role.
Undoubtedly one of his finest performances to date and yet another successful partnership with Christopher Nolan, Damon leads the line admirably, but it would all be for nowt if the sprawling cast around him weren’t there to back him up. Thankfully, therefore, The Odyssey’s colossal cast are more than just names on a poster as everyone plays their part perfectly, with special praise going to, in no particular order, Anne Hathaway, John Leguizamo, Himesh Patel, and the scene-stealing Samantha Morton, who all pull one hell of a shift to ensure they’re not buried under the weight and sheer enormity of the story.
As ever, it’s to Christopher Nolan’s immense credit that he’s able to not only piece together such an impressive cast but also to get the very best out of them, and while his difficulties with crafting good female characters remains one of his lingering issues, there’s more than enough going on elsewhere to overcome this (depressingly frequent) shortfall. With Nolan’s direction working in perfect unison with Damon and the collective power of the ensemble around him, The Odyssey is able not only to reach the incredibly high bar it’s set for itself but absolutely burst past it to become an all-encompassing Trojan triumph and one of the finest fantasy films of this or any other year.
As epic and awe-inspiring as Matt Damon’s forearm veins, The Odyssey is everything you could possibly want from a Christopher Nolan adaptation of the ancient adventure – and then some. Swept along by Ludwig Göransson’s delicate yet bone-rattling score, a colossal, star-studded ensemble, a striking emotional resonance, and Nolan’s majestic, achingly ambitious scope and style, this is summer blockbuster cinema on a whole other level and undoubtedly among the director’s finest work.
