‘The Odyssey’ review: Nolan, where art thou?

Christopher Nolan returns with a stacked cast and a shockingly hollow adaptation of literary wonder with The Odyssey.

When Christopher Nolan released Tenet, it felt like we finally hit a limit with him. The enigmatic writer/director had been mixing lofty ambitions and concepts with blockbuster sensibilities pretty well for the better part of 15 years. Then Tenet came along with its near-inscrutable time inversion logic and Nolan’s request to just “feel it,” and that’s when he lost us. Not all of us, mind you, but it’s one of the few times that a Nolan film has split a majority of public opinion.

Six years later and the Oscar glory of Oppenheimer behind him, Nolan has somehow found an opposite end to his own limit. Instead of a movie too dense with complex logic, he’s made something that’s nearly vacant of any mythic power it once had. Quite the epic achievement.

Speaking of epics, The Odyssey is one of the oldest, most treasured pieces of mythic storytelling in the history of mankind. Under Nolan’s gaze, he’s taking it back to basics with Odysseus (Matt Damon) on a quest to return home to Ithaca after conquering Troy. He and his men end up angering the Gods, bringing about everything from giant monsters to sinister sirens in their path. Nevertheless, Odysseus must return for the sake of his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland), who fend off corruption from Antinous (Robert Pattinson) and a gaggle of other power-hungry suitors.

Barely staying afloat.

Photo Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

If there’s one word that could describe Nolan’s Odyssey, it’s…loose. Not in the way that O Brother, Where Art Thou? loosely adapted Homer’s story into a silly Southern romp. More like almost every technical aspect of the movie itself needs tightening. The editing certainly does, with many scenes having sudden cuts in the middle of dialogue that throw off whatever flow they’ve been building. Other Nolan movies have a mechanical precision to how and when they cut between scenes. Here, Nolan gets bored with his own dialogue and keeps changing shots for the old “show, don’t tell” rule, even though his actors are telling the audience quite a lot. Maybe that’s warranted because the telling doesn’t evoke a great sense of gravitas or drama something this sacred of source material would imply. Nolan’s script is a very bare-bones telling of Odysseus’s journey with understated emotions and only a few sparks of passion in the delivery. The choice to have everyone speak in bland American accents doesn’t help either. Not every sword-wielding epic needs to have lines meant to reach the heavens like in Spartacus or even The Lord of the Rings, but you would think a near three-hour endeavor would fill its space with actors bringing personalities other than grimace. Even Gladiator II gave Denzel Washington some rings and a robe to flail around for the sake of dramatic flair.

Worse is how little imagination Nolan brings to The Odyssey. There are boring, matter-of-fact introductions to Polyphemus the Cyclops, the Sirens, a six-headed sea monster and others that make them feel like footnotes in a story that uses those elements as fantastical challenges. Nolan is certainly known for gritty, more realistic takes on wild concepts, but it’s a major miscalculation applying that to a world where the greatest powers come from gods and goddesses. There are a few moments of creativity from Nolan, like the use of Athena (Zendaya) as a specter for Odysseus’s great failure and turning the Underworld into a darkened beach with the dead creeping just under the shore. The movie’s creative peak is with Circe (Samantha Morton) in a scene that’s the closest Nolan has ever come to doing body horror. But those moments are too few and far between to not make you desperately want more out of the presentation.

At the very least, Nolan still knows how to shoot vistas beautifully. The on-site locations with seaside plains look incredible and the depiction of the Fall of Troy is impressive in starting quiet before turning into madness. Nolan also knows how to establish scope out of those practical sets so that every shore Odysseus washes up on looks like a vast open world of its own. Though daytime scenes have Nolan’s usual washed-out color scheme with dimmer shades and faded grays, the darker scenes make good use of small open flames (torches, lanterns, fire pits) as tools for building tension and creating the classic orange/teal contrast. The true treasure of this Odyssey is the score from the ever-evolving Ludwig Göransson, who uses reconstructed bronze instruments to create the air of creeping dread as the journey unfolds. Mixing that with bits of electronic drones that don’t overplay their hand makes for minimalism that actually works for this project.

Lost at sea.

Photo Credit: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures

Alas, the vacant script for The Odyssey doesn’t offer much for such a talented cast to work on. Without meatier dialogue or room to bring emotional heft, Damon and Holland appear too bland in their respective roles to leave a lasting impression. Holland is especially weak here, which is shocking given his British accent and theater experience would’ve made him more than capable to handle this kind of drama. Still, Nolan’s accent directive and emotional withdraw don’t do him any favors. In fact, a lot of the cast fail to leave impressions due to the flattened dialogue. Some of the actors try to break through that deadening wall, whether it be Corey Hawkins being a more violent suitor chomping at Odysseus’s throne or Elliot Page as a doomed soldier questioning his leader’s resolve. Sadly, they and others have too little screen time to make their mark.

There are but a few who manage to rise to (and beyond) the occasion. Morton is fantastic in her brief role as Circe, while Himesh Patel has a consistent presence as Odysseus’s second in command. Pattinson has a little bit of fun nuzzling up to Penelope and sneering at Telemachus waiting for the right moment to strike. John Leguizamo makes a surprisingly effective turn as Odysseus’s aging friend whose blindness makes him see beyond the ways of man. The way Leguizamo’s grizzled voice carries both wisdom and despair is a new avenue for him to explore as an actor. But Hathaway is the one who manages to meet Nolan’s emotional void and turn it into something grander. Her performance carries a royal elegance to it while also having vulnerable moments of heartbreak and loss. Even when her director tries hard to suck out any possible melodrama, Hathaway finds it and thrusts it onto the screen for our benefit, bless her.

The bottom line.

The best thing about The Odyssey is that it makes the once-invincible Nolan a bit more human. Like a modern Greek hero built up by his peers as a god-like figure, he now exposes another Achilles’ heel in this technically-solid but emotionally-barren adaptation. It’s almost a cousin of Steven Spielberg’s latest, Disclosure Day, which also has a limp story but floods its audience with too much emotional heft. Maybe this is a hard reset for Nolan; after going so far deep into space and time, Oppenheimer and The Odyssey are him trying to come back to more grounded stories of human error. Who knows where he goes next, but hopefully he finds that sweet spot that mixes evocative human spirit with grand storytelling ambition. Or this is his moment with Calypso; a conquerer washed ashore and weary from all his great victories trying to remember where he was going in the first place.

The Odyssey hits theaters July 17. Watch the trailer below.

Images courtesy of Melinda Sue Gordon and Universal Pictures. Read more articles by Jon Winkler here.

Jon Winkler