The Midyssey
This summer, director Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” sailed into theatres in July, receiving rousing success and quickly becoming one of Nolan’s most successful movies to date. But, as much as I want to give Nolan his flowers for the success of the movie, it heavily falls flat as an adaptation. As someone who’s consumed “The Odyssey” by reading the book and having listened to “EPIC: The Musical,” an adaptation that takes the original story into a soundtrack for a conceptual stageplay, all revisions Nolan applied leave it feeling incomplete.
For the uninitiated, “The Odyssey” follows the story of Odysseus, master tactician of the Greek army after they won the Trojan War. Through Odysseus’idea of Disguising Greek soldiers in a fake offering, the Greeks were able to sabotage the city’s defenses from the inside, helping them secure victory. When the Greeks leave to sail home after their victory, Odysseus sails home to Ithaca, only to be lost at sea for 10 years due to the interference of the gods, while his son, Telemachus, seeks to find the whereabouts of his father and protect his vacant throne .
The original epic of “The Odyssey” spanned a 24-book saga, which Nolan condensed into 2 hours and 50 minutes. While I admire the efforts made to tell a story that is under three hours, the changes made affect how the story is told. Every paragraph after this will contain spoilers for the plot. If you want to read my final thoughts, find the last paragraph of the article.
The biggest change that Nolan’s Odyssey makes to the story is that it starts in media res. We meet Odysseus in the film ¾ of the way through the story, where he is trapped on the island of the deity Calypso, suffering from amnesia. Meanwhile, in the original story, Odysseus’ voyage back home and Telemachus’ coming-of-age story happen concurrently.
While this storytelling technique does save time, the bulk of the story being shown through flashbacks as Odysseus recalls his past only serves to harm the characters. The flashbacks throughout the film only go over the key points throughout the journey, not the small details and character moments that help build the characters of figures like Odysseus and his crew.
For example, one of Odysseus’ key character traits in the epic is his cunning wisdom. One of the main parts of the story where this trait is exemplified is when Odysseus and his crew are trapped with cyclops Polyphemus, who’s actively hostile to Odysseus’ crew. Odysseus defeats the cyclops the same way in both versions, by blinding him in his one eye, but the film and epic go about blinding Polyphemus very differently.
In the epic, Odysseus uses his trickery to get Polyphemus drunk on wine, as a seeming act of peace, only to blind him when he becomes blackout drunk. Meanwhile in Nolan’s film, Polyphemus’ hostility is heavily toned down, only trapping Odysseus’ crew in the cave with him, and being uncharacteristically passive. In this version, Odysseus and his crew blind Polyphemus after he goes to sleep for the night.
The movie’s confrontation with Polyphemus ends up landing a lot weaker than the epic’s version because the confrontation feels a lot more convenient for Odysseus. Polyphemus acts completely unlike his epic counterpart, not attempting to harm Odysseus’ crew despite eating a handful of them upon their first meeting. Odysseus’ plan with blinding Polyphemus and escaping only works in the film because this version of Polyphemus is inconsistently passive, making the showcases of Odysseus’ cunning confined to the start and end of the film. As a result, Odysseus’ key trait of being a tactician comes across minimally in the adaptation.
We also see less of the Greek deities in the film, like Athena. For example, Athena in the epic cares about Odysseus and his family, as they have her blessing. Yet, despite how much she wants to secure their safety, she can only do so much as provide counsel due to the interference of the other gods, of whom we see less in the film.
The other main deities, Zeus and Poseidon, don’t appear physically, while Athena has her own actor. It’s a confusing decision, especially for Poseidon, considering he plays a key antagonistic role in the epic, harboring a vendetta against Odysseus. However, in Nolan’s film, Zeus and Poseidon only appear in the story as the weather and elements they control.
The deities being less prominent in the film only harm it, because the events of the Odyssey happen as the gods’ karmic justice for Odysseus’ actions at Troy. By having the gods be less prominent, the film loses a lot of grandeur that comes from Odysseus being a victim of a predetermined fate and feels a lot more like Odysseus facing the consequences of making consecutively worse decisions.
From a more professional perspective, I met with our academic support coordinator Robert Aceret, who taught “The Odyssey” as a part of the English 9 curriculum last year, and having been a fan of the story since 6th grade, shared his thoughts through an interview.
“As a movie, I would score it a 9 out of 10.” He enjoyed how the film was very on-brand for Christopher Nolan movies and how the movie juxtaposed Odysseus’ story to the end of the Bronze Age, his actions throughout the film marking the end of this era, through the Greek victory over Troy. He admitted it was a bit weird hearing the characters refer to their time period using its historical age.
Mr. Aceret, however, had different views on the film as an adaptation. He had more than a few qualms about the changes included that dropped the score from a 9 to a 6 out of 10.
He commented that the film not including every part made the adaptation feel incomplete, likening it to telling the story of Hercules and his 12 labors, but only showing 11. Sure, it covers the most important story beats, but its missing parts diminish the progression the characters have by not including every beat.
Another of Mr. Aceret’s gripes, however, were the changes made to Penelope and her impact on the story. “I still think Christopher Nolan doesn’t know how to write female characters, especially with Penelope.” He remarks that in the epic, Penelope is Odysseus’ equal in intelligence; they complete each other, but in the film, Penelope’ seldom appears loses a lot of her character and her bond with Odysseus..
This dilemma for Odysseus and Penelope’s relationship between the epic and the film makes for a great example of “Show, Don’t Tell” writing. No matter which version of the Odyssey you consume, it’s established that Odysseus toughs out his 20-year absence away from Ithaca because he misses his wife and family that much.
But in the film, we’re only ever told that Odysseus misses Penelope. We never see the why or how that Penelope is the only woman for Odysseus and vice versa, and the only scenes we see of them together before they reunite are when they argue about Odysseus going to Troy.
Mr. Aceret brought up one of the main pieces of imagery originating from the epic that does not appear at all in the film: the olive tree that the bedroom of Odysseus and Penelope is built around. When constructing the royal bedroom, Odysseus carved all the furniture within from the olive tree living inside it, making it impossible for the furniture in the bedroom to be moved without cutting the tree.
And for all 20 years Odysseus was missing, Penelope left their room untouched, a true sign of her unwavering commitment to Odysseus. That is, until Odysseus arrives home. When Odysseus returns home disguised, Penelope has a servant move their bed, as a sort of two-factor authentication, as Mr. Aceret described, to see if the stranger who strung Odysseus’ bow was actually him.
When Odysseus gets summoned to Penelope’s chambers after slaying the suitors, a detail from the epic Mr. Aceret would have preferred over Odysseus sparing them in the adaptation, Odysseus has an aghast reaction to seeing their bed missing, dropping his disguise and flying into a rage over how Penelope dared to remove their bed and the pains it took Odysseus to make it.
Seeing Odysseus “crash out” so to speak was all Penelope needed to truly know it was her husband, bringing him into a loving embrace. The love between Odysseus and Penelope are integral components to both characters. It would have been heartwarming to have this scene in the final film, along with making it a more fitting adaptation.
Overall, though Nolan’s Odyssey makes for a thrilling cinematic experience, with eye-catching shots and rich action sequences, it falls flat in multiple aspects in comparison to its source. If you are particular about how it stacks up to the original, the movie can become a frustrating watch. But if you’ve never read the original epic, or just want to watch something cool and spectacular and don’t particularly care about its accuracy, don’t let this review stop you from enjoying this work of art.