The Odyssey (Christian Movie Review)
The Odyssey is a cinematic masterpiece, showcasing Christopher Nolan in full command of his abilities, with an epic tale that, despite online controversies, offers a surprisingly conservative tale about the importance of preserving the good, true, and beautiful.
About the Film
Homer’s Greek epic The Odyssey is a foundational work of world literature. The archetypal tale of a war hero’s struggle to return home transcends its original era and culture. Much like Odysseus himself, the modernized film adaptation helmed by Christopher Nolan must navigate some tempestuous cultural seas to find its way home—and like its hero, it succeeds. The Odyssey is a cinematic masterpiece, showcasing Christopher Nolan in full command of his abilities, with an epic tale that, despite online controversies, offers a surprisingly conservative tale about the importance of preserving the good, true, and beautiful.
Much of the controversy about the film has been aimed toward the casting of Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot/Ellen Page (more on that below), but it’s the casting of Rapper Travis Scott that arguably proves more consequential. The film opens with Scott in the role of a bard, reciting the story of the Trojan War. In press interviews, Christopher Nolan explained the surprising casting choice as a nod to the story’s oral tradition. Even the story itself unfolds largely through nonlinear flashbacks and memories. In other words, questions of “historical accuracy” or fidelity to the source material are valid but miss Nolan’s intent. This cinematic telling is but another telling in the oral tradition; one more concerned with preserving the “soul” of the tale than the historic details.
It’s possible for the The Odyssey to simultaneously be a great film and a poor adaptation (insofar as that is measured by rigid fidelity to the source material). I will leave the question of adaptation to others, but setting aside those concerns, The Odyssey is a cinematic marvel, visually stunning with an epic scope rarely achieved. It’s not hyperbole to say that it stands among the most “cinematic” films ever made in terms of sheer production quality and scope; a film that demands to be experienced on the big screen (IMAX if possible). Whether it’s the use of a 60-foot puppet rather than a CGI creation for the cyclops, or visceral shots of the ships at sea, the commitment to old school “movie magic” results in something immersive, tangible, and nostalgic.
For his version of the story, Christopher Nolan not only pulls from Homer’s epic (and Virgil’s The Aeneid), but also extensively from his own filmography, particularly The Dark Knight trilogy and Oppenheimer. As with his acclaimed Batman films, Nolan grounds the fantastical in a sense of realism. The opening title card sets the backdrop as “a time of apparent magic,” and Troy is not sacked just because of Helen’s beauty, but also political motivations to control trade routes. For the most part, the grounded tone works and gives the story a sense of weight (and even a dose of horror). At the same time, when the more supernatural elements are included—such as the famous cyclops, or a tentacled monster, or a company of giant warriors—they can feel jarring. The world Nolan has created is thrilling, but not always cohesive.
The story is stretched almost to the point of snapping. Nolan’s ambitious narrative scope is not able to fully do justice to each of the characters and storylines he wants to weave into the sprawling tapestry (although some, such as Anne Hathaway, provide standout performances). Still, the story never feels slow or boring, and there’s always another impressive sequence around the corner. As with the source material, the narrative is episodic and repetitive (sail, stop at new island for provisions, discover supernatural horror, flee for their lives, repeat). What keeps the story from becoming disjointed is its thematic unity. Each episodic adventure is not just an excuse for more spectacle; they are lessons that further both Odysseus’s external and internal journey home.
In one scene, Odysseus’s son (played by Tom Holland) declares that despite not learning anything about his lost father’s whereabouts, he has gained something just as valuable: “You didn’t tell me where he is. You told me who he is.” That is the core of Christopher Nolan’s vision. Beneath the modern alterations to the mythical tale, this is still the story of a husband and father whose odyssey is as much an emotional, spiritual, and moral journey back to his foundational and guiding principles as it is a literal return home. Despite plenty of criticism from politically conservative commentators, Nolan’s modern adaptation arguably moves the tale more in line with a Christian worldview than away from it (see themes below). The skin color of characters may be different, and the language modern (at times jarringly so, such as some needlessly strong profanity), but Nolan has drastically toned down the original tale’s sexuality and offers a central message about the need to cling to tradition, honoring the faith and moral codes of our past, rather than give into our carnal nature in the present.
Of course, it’s fair to wonder whether Nolan himself honors such a message. Regarding the film’s controversies, they prove to be mostly much ado about nothing. Besides being a beautiful and highly accomplished actress, Lupita Nyong’o’s casting as Helen makes narrative sense within the context of the film, and her role is shockingly minor. The casting of Elliot Page is more questionable due to a more prominent role and flashbacks with the character played by a young boy actor – which makes the casting of biologically female trans actor more peculiar. Even so, despite online rumors, Page is not presented as hyper masculine Greek war hero, but as a civilian drafted into the army that is too delicate for the battlefield. In other words, the significance of Nolan casting Page as a male character is a troubling affirmation of progressive sexuality, but there is nothing within the story itself that necessarily promotes such a sexual agenda.
In the end, Chrisopher Nolan’s vision for The Odyssey won’t please everyone, but not even Homer’s epic itself is universally enjoyed. Not every creative decision works, but the film is nevertheless a stunning achievement, a cinematic experience worthy of standing alongside the great Hollywood epics, and a film that will almost certainly be a player at the next Academy Awards. It’s the type of film that modern audiences should want to be made, one that values movie magic over hollow spectacle, and strives for thematic and philosophical depth that most modern blockbusters don’t. In a film about the struggle to hold true to the values of the past, Nolan’s The Odyssey shows both the beauty and the difficulty of holding true to those convictions. Amid that messy struggle is a thrilling experience and one of the best films of the year.
For Consideration
On the Surface—(Profanity, Sexual content, violence, etc.).
Language: There are 3 F-words, as well as several other minor profanities.
Violence: Despite its R-rating, the on-screen violence is surprisingly toned down. Characters get hacked and slashed and shot with arrows during battle, but the blood is not overly graphic. Men get eaten by a monster (with various limps falling from its mouth), but the scene happens mostly within shadows that conceals the worst of the horror. Soldiers massacre women and children while capturing a city, but the violence is implied rather than shown. A scene in which a witch molds men’s faces like clay into the form of pigs is disturbing.
Sexuality: Several men are shown nude from behind. Some female sirens may or may not be nude or scantily dressed but are only visible at a distance and concealed in fog. A husband lays on a bed in his underwear as his wife approaches him, before the seemingly intimate moment takes an unexpected turn. Some immoral sexual activity is implied or alluded too, such as soldiers that raped women during their pillages of towns, and a husband that is implied to have had a sexual relationship with another woman (although he is drugged and unaware).
Other: As expected, the film is heavily populated by Greek mythology and religion.
Engage The Film
Preserving the Good, True, and Beautiful
Much of the tale is based on “Zeus’s law” which holds as a sort of “golden rule” and promotes hospitality, grace, and mercy. The law suggests that characters should treat all people with respect and dignity, because you never know when they may be a god in disguise (similar to the angels who visit Lot in Sodom in Genesis 19). This ancient code is presented as the bedrock of society, with the beauty of Troy elevated as a sort of ideal of civilization. It is the breaking of this law—through the Trojan horse that uses a gift of hospitality as a means of violence—that starts the moral decay of civilization.
The Greek gods are vindictive and petty, and so not comparable to the true Biblical God, but in some ways, the film represents a more Judeo-Christian approach to the pagan story. Odysseus’s declaration “Then I defy the gods!” was the tagline on the movie’s poster. In the context of the film, however, the mindset is framed as a negative. Odysseus’s trials and tribulations are suggested to be a direct result of this defiance, of resisting divine fate and breaking Zeus’s law. His eventual moment of triumph and rebirth, which happens in a moment of symbolic baptism, comes when he finally surrenders to the will of the gods and takes responsibility for his actions.
Earlier, when an evil witch transforms Odysseus’s crew into pigs, she refers to their human form as their “disguise.” Men are nothing but gluttonous swine driven by base desire. The journey at the heart of the film is to overcome that human nature. While the film’s message has a pagan outer wrapping, Christians can affirm its central values of fighting to hold onto the good, true, and beautiful of the past within a changing world of carnal sin and desire. Christians may not endorse Zeus’s law, but we can agree that if left to our own sinful nature, without a higher religious standard and code, civilization is indeed doomed to crumble.
