The movie is enchanting despite its frustrating qualities.
I excused myself from work a bit early on Friday to join a group seeing Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Before I share my review with you all, I have to admit something: I haven’t read The Odyssey. (Go ahead, make fun of me in the comments.) It’s just one of those works that I know I should read, and it is on my list, but I just haven’t gotten around to it yet. So I couldn’t tell you whether Nolan’s The Odyssey is a generally faithful representation of the poem.
But the casting alone makes it clear that the production team exercised broad creative license and infused Homer’s epic poem with modern progressive sensibilities: Ellen “Elliot” Page (unconvincingly) postures as a male soldier, Lupita Nyong’o is Helen of Troy, and an Indian guy is second-in-command to Odysseus. I would be willing to suspend my disbelief, and possibly even appreciate, the needlessly diverse cast if the actors were captivating in their respective roles, but nearly all the acting was mediocre at best. (Some caveats: Robert Pattinson was fantastic, while Anne Hathaway was a bit too theatrical but gets a pass for trying.) Nolan clearly considered, and maybe even prioritized, whether an actor has a flashy name when hiring. Tom Holland has just enough talent that he might shine momentarily in a middle-school production. Zendaya understood her character, the goddess Athena, to have an emotional range from “a bit stern” to “very stern.” The sole expression she delivered can be described as “mother glaring at small child who put a cold glass on the coffee table without using a coaster.” But the most frustrating casting choice is Matt Damon as Odysseus, since it defies human abilities to see him as something other than Matt Damon. (Whenever I see him on-screen, my immediate thought is, “Oh, hey, that’s Matt Damon.” Then, I think, “Wow, he’s such an annoying progressive in real life who believes he’s much smarter than he really is.”) Unfortunately, Damon seemed bored and uninterested, as if he couldn’t wait to be done filming the movie; the minor exception is the 30-ish seconds when he’s listening in agony to the sirens’ song.
In fact, most of the actors seemed like they just cared about being in a movie directed by Nolan; virtually none of them convinced me that they appreciated the depth and nuance of the story they were portraying. Perhaps the actors deserve a bit of charity, though, because the script was largely simplistic and painfully moralizing — which is particularly disappointing when you remember that the movie is based on an epic poem that has inspired Westerners for millennia. Could it really have been so difficult to write artful dialogue when the source material is Homer? If you removed every snippet where an actor is talking, the movie might actually be better.
Everything I’ve said thus far lends itself to the conclusion that I disliked the movie and would discourage others from seeing it. But that isn’t true.
If you aren’t a picky classicist, and if you can accept okay-ish acting, and if you can forget the fact that Matt Damon is just an irritating person, then The Odyssey is a worthwhile experience. The special effects are exceptionally well executed, so I didn’t feel as though I was watching some sloppy computer-generated animation. In fact, it felt as though I were inside the movie rather than watching it — maybe as a result of the expansive screen, or the atmospheric score, or the intricately choreographed slaughtering. Honestly, I wish that Nolan had left out the first 40-ish minutes and instead devoted more screen time to the dramatic action. Some grand scenes, like Poseidon’s intimidating whirlpool, were so brief that it was challenging to appreciate their significance. Nevertheless, the whirlpool was super cool.
I’m not at all a film geek. I don’t pick movies apart to analyze their intricacies and uncover some deep artistic meaning. The only relevant question for me when evaluating a movie’s quality is, “Was this entertaining?” The Odyssey was dramatic, exciting, surprising, and visually captivating. I temporarily forgot that I have some guest contributions to edit for National Review, I have to clean my apartment, I need to cook those chicken thighs in the fridge because they expire on Sunday, and I need to buy hair gel because I ran out the other day. I suggest you just get out of the house and plop down in the theater for a showing. The movie is enchanting despite its frustrating qualities.