Movie Review: The Odyssey

It's not a coincidence that Christopher Nolan used the blank check from Universal he earned after Oppenheimer made $983 million at the global box office and won a zillion Oscars 3 years ago to make The Odyssey. Not only has Nolan been working his whole career towards making a sprawling epic, but Homer's text makes for the perfect thematic complement to Oppenheimer as both films focus on a man who was the driving force behind winning a war coming to terms with the price of "victory". In the case of Odysseus (Matt Damon), he has to consider if slaughtering the people of Troy, getting so many of his own men killed and being away from his family (Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland) for decades was a worthwhile trade-off for being lauded as a hero by the people who cheered for the victory without ever bearing witness to all of the death and destruction that followed him. He comes to realize as his memory slowly returns after spending a decade stuck on an island with the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron)-who has fallen in love with him as she nursed him back to health after his unconscious body washed up on her shores-that being victorious in war doesn't help spare you from the burden of inflicting so much suffering onto others. 

Electing to really focus on the true cost of Odysseus' actions during and following the Trojan War is an inspired framing for the latest adaptation of one of the oldest stories in the world. For the first time in a long time, Nolan finds a real narrative reason to trot out his signature cutesy non-linear storytelling device to show Odysseus' fragmented memories returning to him that details the life he left behind, how the war was won and the series of horrific events that led to him washing up on Calypso's island alone. Having all of the choices he made that led him to that beach gradually play out on screen challenges the real mythmaking in The Odyssey-Odysseus as a hero. Being so far removed from all the despair, suffering and death his actions when his memories return forced him to really sit with the weight of his actions and subsequently reframe his own legacy.

Once Odysseus finally gets on the path that brings him home to Ithaca and in turn, something that at least resembles redemption for all of the hurt that he's brought into the world by reuniting with his wife and the son he's never known, the film largely pivots to a more traditional narrative style that highlights the difficulties Odysseus faces as he sets to reuniting with his family and plots one final violent siege to rid his home of the suitors (Robert Pattinson, Corey Hawkins, several others that have little-to-no dialogue) and traitors (Logan Marshall-Green, Mia Goth) that aim to bring harm to the people he loves. In this final chapter, Nolan manages to do something really remarkable by delivering a really powerful emotional crescendo to Odysseus' story (Damon and Hathaway are on fire during their big "reunion" scene) and in the final moments, issuing a chilling statement that the world will forever be doomed to repeat Odysseus' mistakes by forgetting how war brings nothing but needless suffering for all parties involved. As somebody who has always felt that Nolan has struggled in the areas of filmmaking that don't involve spectacle and technical wizardry, I was in a borderline state of disbelief watching him make something that achieved so much success with its dramatic, emotionally charged storytelling.

Since the story of Odysseus is also paved with massive battles and constant peril, Nolan has the luxury of getting to have his cake and eat it too. Every penny of the reported $250 million budget can be felt on the screen as Nolan gives the viewer a front row seat to Odysseus' harrowing journey. There isn't another director working today that would be able to secure the money or have the audacity to do things like shoot extensively on the open ocean, enlist hundreds of extras to reenact the Battle of Troy or depict Odysseus' troops famous encounter with Circe (Samantha Morton) through prosthetics, makeup, etc. instead of CGI. Deep down, Nolan is probably aware of this, and he didn't take this golden opportunity to make something that's uniquely immersive for granted at all. It's a miracle that this movie was made in such a tactile manner and my hat goes off to the remarkably hard work that the thousands of artists who worked on this project put in to make it possible.

The Odyssey marks the first time since The Dark Knight Rises that I walked away from a Nolan movie very impressed. That's not to say that I don't have issues with it (the big action sequences are let down by consistently choppy editing, the dedication to elaborate location shooting really backfired in the cyclops sequence as it's incredibly difficult to make out what is happening in the cave due to how little light can physically get in there and most of the scenes where Odysseus is sidelined ahead of the third act are considerably less compelling than the rest of the movie) or that I was truly floored was by it like so many people out there have been, but I had plenty of doubts about his ability to pull off a great adaptation of this story and it felt good to be proven wrong. Where Nolan goes from here will be fascinating as the possibilities are pretty much endless now it's guaranteed that the film is going to clear $1 billion worldwide with ease. My guess right now is that he's going to go in the complete opposite direction of The Odyssey and make something considerably smaller in scope to give himself a bit of a reprieve after working on a project that he's repeatedly referred to as the biggest challenge of his career during this press tour. Until the day somewhere in the near (?) future when the mystery of what Nolan's next move gets solved, we'll just have to settle for continuing to discuss how the most prolific director on the planet today somehow managed to further elevate his already comically rich legacy with his 13th feature.

Grade: B+