{"id":2045085,"date":"2026-07-15T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2045085"},"modified":"2026-07-15T16:00:00","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T13:00:00","slug":"the-odyssey-review-christopher-nolan-turns-an-epic-myth-into-a-movie-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=2045085","title":{"rendered":"‘The Odyssey’ review: Christopher Nolan turns an epic myth into a movie masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Home<\/a>><\/span>Entertainment<\/a>><\/span>Movies<\/a><\/div>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

‘The Odyssey’ review: Christopher Nolan turns an epic myth into a movie masterpiece<\/h1>\n
Christopher Nolan’s first fantasy film is a stunning success.<\/div>\n
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\n \u00a0By\u00a0<\/p>\n
Belen Edwards<\/a><\/p>\n
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\"A<\/p>\n
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Belen Edwards<\/div>\n
Entertainment Reporter<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\n Belen Edwards is an Entertainment Reporter at Mashable. She covers movies and TV with a focus on fantasy and science fiction, adaptations, animation, and more nerdy goodness. She is a member of the Critics Choice Association and the Television Critics Association, as well as a Tomatometer-approved critic.\n <\/div>\n

Read Full Bio<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Matt<\/p>\n
Matt Damon in “The Odyssey.”<\/span>Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon \/ Universal Pictures<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Christopher Nolan is an exceptional genre-hopper.<\/p>\n

The filmmaker has dabbled in everything from science fiction (Interstellar<\/em>) to biographical dramas (Oppenheimer<\/em><\/a>), superhero stories (The Dark Knight <\/em>trilogy) to thrillers (Memento<\/em>). At each step, he manages to make a genre undeniably his own, infusing it with his trademark sleekness and dedication to scale. Even his period pieces \u2014 The Prestige<\/em>, Dunkirk<\/em>, and Oppenheimer<\/em> \u2014 feel cut from the same cloth as his more future-leaning works.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:<\/span>‘The Odyssey’ trailer gives us our best look yet at Zendaya’s Athena<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

But with The Odyssey<\/em><\/a>, Nolan lands upon his greatest genre challenge yet: a fantasy epic that’s arguably the most influential story of all time. Homer’s Odyssey <\/em>comes with the baggage of thousands of years of scholarship, myriad translations, and a legion of anyone who’s ever had a Greek mythology phase having very <\/em>strong opinions about how each of the poem’s iconic moments should play out. And that’s all before we get to the meat of The Odyssey <\/em>itself, with its monsters and sorceresses and battles.<\/p>\n

So, how does Nolan approach his first foray into epic fantasy? How does he fare when turning his lens to antiquity and one of its foundational myths?<\/p>\n

The answer, in a word, is spectacularly. Nolan eschews the sleek modernity that’s come to define his filmography. Instead, he gives himself up to a grimy, haunting take on The Odyssey<\/em> that weaves myth and history into a devastating, unforgettable reckoning for Odysseus (Matt Damon) himself.<\/p>\n

How does Christopher Nolan adapt The Odyssey<\/em>?<\/h2>\n
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Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon \/ Universal Pictures<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Nolan’s signature non-linear storytelling<\/a> fits perfectly with the structure of Homer’s Odyssey<\/em>, which sees multiple narrators take over the epic with their own recollections. The film focuses on two primary storylines, from which Nolan flashes back liberally. <\/p>\n

In the first, Ithaca’s Queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and her son Telemachus (Tom Holland) wait for King Odysseus’ return, all while weathering a storm of unwanted suitors, including walking slimeball Antinous (Robert Pattinson). They’ve been hounding Penelope’s halls for years, taking advantage of her hospitality in the name of Zeus’ law, a tenet that reminds hosts to respect and provide for their guests, as any of them could be a god in disguise. Naturally, the suitors abuse this mandatory hospitality with their constant drinking, feasting, and harassing of the locals, leaving Penelope and Telemachus in an impossible situation. Do they continue to accept these indignities? Or do they push back and risk angering the gods?<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:<\/span>‘The Odyssey’ sails into rave reviews and online backlash<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

As Penelope and Telemachus wait out their eternal nightmare, they, along with Odysseus’s loyal swineherd Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), recall the king who has been missing for almost 20 years. This is how we first meet Odysseus: not as a cunning warrior, but as a family man and an honorable mentor to Ithaca’s youth. Later, when Telemachus visits King Menelaus (Jon Bernthal) in Sparta, he’ll hear stories about his father’s Trojan Horse scheme, and how he ended the Trojan War.<\/p>\n

These are the bits and pieces we get of Odysseus, meted out bit by bit by Nolan and deft editing from Jennifer Lame. But what of the man himself? Who is the reality behind the myth?<\/p>\n

By the time we meet the true Odysseus, not someone filtered through memory or oral storytelling, he’s an aimless man. He’s stranded on the island Ogygia with the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron), with little memory of what came before. He’s restless, though, and as Calypso prompts him to recount his journey, out spill the most iconic events of The Odyssey<\/em>: cyclopes, sirens, and more.<\/p>\n

The Odyssey<\/em>‘s fantasy is both extremely Nolan and extremely grotesque.<\/h2>\n
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Matt Damon in “The Odyssey.”<\/span>Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon \/ Universal Pictures<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The challenges Odysseus’ faces on his journey have become familiar cultural touchstones, across thousands of years in art, film, TV, literature, video games, theatre, and more. Yet Nolan, in 2026, still manages to put his own twist on them.<\/p>\n

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In Inception<\/em>, the dreams Nolan conjured up never shifted too far from our reality, instead warping familiar landscapes. The same goes for The Odyssey<\/em>‘s understated fantasy elements, which blend into the film’s rocky crags and vibrant shrubbery. (Seriously, this is Nolan’s lushest film, brought to life by cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema.) Sirens are glimpsed from afar. The monster Scylla’s true form appears in fragments. The Earth-feared gods appear only as natural phenomena \u2014 claps of thunder, raging storms \u2014 leaving viewers to wonder whether these are truly acts of providence or not. The exception here is Zendaya’s goddess Athena, who counsels Odysseus, but even she isn’t carrying out acts of divine intervention willy-nilly.<\/p>\n

While this more grounded approach to fantasy is pure Nolan, what really sets his Odyssey <\/em>apart, especially in his own filmography, is his willingness to lean in to the grotesque absurdity of the myth.<\/p>\n

You heard me right: Nolan gets grotesque. Once, I would have found this unthinkable. For the most part, Nolan’s films shine with a clean composure. Men in sharp suits. Glossy tech. Even the soldiers in Dunkirk <\/em>aren’t overly bloodied, and Interstellar<\/em>‘s dust stormsdon’t stick to the protagonists for long.<\/p>\n

SEE ALSO:<\/span>‘Moana’ review: Disney transforms a cinematic masterpiece to kids’ stuff<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n

Yet The Odyssey <\/em>revels in the muck and oddity of its mythic Bronze Age. The Trojan Horse wait leaves soldiers silently trapped in filthy water and their own waste. During a trip to Hades, shades rise from dark sands and drink sacrificial blood, delivering hard truths with dirtied faces. The Goya-inspired<\/a> cyclops Polyphemus’ (Bill Irwin) twisted face and disconcerting movements turn him into a creature not just to be feared, but to be fascinated by, even empathized with.<\/p>\n

However, this willingness to get weird and gross elevates The Odyssey<\/em>‘s fantastic elements. Look no further than Odysseus’ crew’s standout encounter with Circe (Samantha Morton), a sorceress who turns unwelcome visitors into animals. Circe wields no wand here. Instead, she transforms through sculpting, kneading, and molding men’s flesh like clay. The sequence is visceral body horror, unlike anything Nolan has done before.<\/p>\n

Does The Odyssey <\/em>fix Christopher Nolan’s woman problem?<\/h2>\n
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Mia Goth and Anne Hathaway in “The Odyssey.”<\/span>Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon \/ Universal Pictures<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The meeting with Circe, while brief, also proves that Nolan has comes leaps and bounds when it comes to the role of women in his films, a weak point across his work. (Granted, he’s drawing from source material that features several complicated women. He’s also using a translation by Emily Wilson, who reckoned with women’s role in The Odyssey<\/em><\/a>.) Here, Nolan makes sure to emphasize the women of The Odyssey<\/em>‘s complexities, as opposed to letting them linger on the sidelines or in dead wife montages<\/a>. Most importantly, he lets them be angry. <\/p>\n

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