The Odyssey

 

This review may contain spoilers!

The Odyssey is an adaptation of Homer's classic epic. A retelling of the myth of Odysseus, the fall of Troy and the King's journey home to Ithaca to restore his kingdom.

When I was a kid, before I'd even read the Percy Jackson books that followed me around everywhere, I had a myriad collection of Greek myth non-fiction books. I used to lose myself in those mythological stories of magic, pantheons and heroism. That's the power of mythology; it's a cultural history - often of religious elements. But it's also storytelling. It's the preservation of incredible concepts that have interpreted war, sickness, the seasons, more. The Odyssey as an epic is the cost of war, how it changed the Grecian age forever and the rite of xenia (or Zeus' Law, as this film rather simply labels it). In Christopher Nolan's hands, there is no doubt that The Odyssey will be sculpted as an epic ought. Nolan is a mythmaker himself; he pursues monolithic stories. Whether you like or dislike what Nolan crafts, they are always productions of an incomparable scale. The Odyssey is exactly another globe-spanning feat of cinema for Christopher Nolan. It is shot with artistry in mind, and holds practical filmmaking as a duty of care. Whether that be something towering like the Trojan Horse or the towering Polyphemus puppet, or something more inventive like the spectres of Hades or the prosthetics for the pig transformation scene. This film is a deck of movie magic tricks, and it's exactly the style of movie craftsmanship we should be hoping to see more of in a production like this.

There is a real sense of atoning for the crimes of war across this feature, but further than that, atoning for the deception and betrayal of xenia by Odysseus. Matt Damon plays our protagonist in this, once again cementing his reign as a leading actor. Damon leads this cast superbly; few truly rival him. The moments where Odysseus is lost and questioning himself, right through to the moments of cunning, Damon shifts and evolves this role. I really believed in the agony of Odysseus, how he felt his own hubris and the burden he had to carry with him homeward. But Damon alone isn't turning out some powerhouse acting. Robert Pattinson has been doing a great run recently, and his take on the despicable Antinous really drove the Ithaca storyline. John Leguizamo brought the blind servant, Eumaeus, to life in what I believed to be a career-best performance. Some actors played in the classical scene and really blew me away, Jon Bernthal immediately coming to mind. While character actors drove home some of the most immersive acting I saw, with Samantha Morton delivering a truly occult performance as Circe and James Remar breathing life into the Underworld.

Some elements felt really good, but they paled in the eyes of the above. Ludwig Göransson is setting a very high standard for film scores right now. His take on The Odyssey draws us into history and has a deeply unsettling and morose sound to it. Yet, it's also discomforting and flat at times. Whole tracks where the sound decimates the scene and fails to raise it up. There were also many performers who would normally shine in a feature that got dwarfed in a Nolan feature. Tom Holland really paced his way quite cautiously through the feature, often failing to rise to the scale of the work before him. Himesh Patel also tried to find the emotional beats of his scenes, but we didn't get to engage with him on a personal level enough as a character. Zendaya is really flexing her talent at the moment, but Athena is such a convoluted representation of the goddess in this that it's hard to see what Zendaya had to work with.

The Odyssey is a film that staggers its way through its pacing. It tries to recount as much of the epic as it can, but it is simply impossible to capture the whole story in a film. Even if that film is three hours long. The confrontation with the suitors is so rushed and played off as an action scene; Polyphemus is made to just be a monster because it's easier than telling the tale. Watching The Odyssey is watching the myth get hacked and slashed reasonably well; it's butchery, but the cut of meat looks good. I also struggled with dialogue throughout. The contemporary style could be suited to a film set in the 80s just as well as it was used here. There is no reasonable grounds for the film to sound like this, and it feels like minimal effort was made for the film to sound like a historic text. Even when the characters started to talk about societal themes bigger than them, it felt ridiculous; the characters musing on the Bronze Age as if they were self-aware they were in the Bronze Age was unusual.

I also think there were plenty of instances in which actors were miscast, or cast out of celebrity. The film opens with Travis Scott, for crying out loud. Anne Hathaway's voice work and intense expulsion of dialogue were quite over the top and didn't lend themselves well to Penelope. Elliot Page as Sinon almost plays out like an afterthought rather than a pivotal role for Odysseus to honour. Charlize Theron feels incredibly wrong for the role of Calypso, with a very monotonous delivery. While actors like Corey Hawkins, Mia Goth and Lupita Nyong'o seem to be here for their celebrity and aren't really given a chance to present their roles. It's Agamemnon that feels quite offbeat. His epic presentation throughout is completely diminished the moment Safdie opens his mouth and delivers a line.

It sure takes an odyssey to get through, but it has Nolan's craftsmanship all over it. I would give The Odyssey a 7/10.