The mind can play tricks on you.
When I first left a screening of Christopher Nolan’s sprawling epic, “The Odyssey,” I was a little perplexed.
I couldn’t deny Nolan’s mastery as a storyteller: The beautiful photography, rich with the color and texture of the high seas. The costume department’s chiseled armor and the art department’s detailed sets of Troy on fire. The practical special effects showcasing a colorful world of giants, goddesses, and monsters.
At the same time, I didn’t feel that rush I usually get after leaving a Christopher Nolan movie — the feeling that I had witnessed something wholly original and different from anything else I’d seen onscreen.
Then I went to bed that night, and something happened that I hadn’t experienced in years: I had dreams about a movie.
Matt Damon as Odysseus, trying to keep his ship afloat as Poseidon makes the ocean angrier.
Anne Hathaway as his wife, Penelope, ensconced in her private quarters as dozens of suitors feast in the dining hall outside her doors.
Odysseus’ aging dog, Argos, patiently waiting for his master to return.
I see an obscene amount of movies each year. It’s rare that one sparks my subconscious like “The Odyssey” has. It took me a few days to realize why.
‘The Odyssey’ has ambition in spades
This is not the first time Hollywood has adapted Homer’s ancient Greek classic, which follows Odysseus, the king of Ithaca, on his 20-year journey home after the Trojan War. But it’s certainly the most ambitious attempt.
Nolan shot the film on multiple continents, on the unpredictable open ocean, and in locations that the cast and crew had to make back-breaking treks to reach. He did it all while using a new IMAX camera built specifically for the movie, making “The Odyssey” the first film ever to be shot entirely on the large format.
It was all worth it. And in an era when CGI and AI are impacting almost every aspect of a moviemaking, perhaps some of the draw of “The Odyssey” is the fact that everything you’re seeing on the big screen is practical, down to the giant hand Odysseus and his men must sneak past to get out of Cyclops’ cave.
Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, and Tom Holland shine, but Zendaya looks lost
Then there are the performances. Nolan has always had an eye for casting, and he nails almost all of his choices here. Damon and Hathaway, who have both previously worked with Nolan, deliver in emotionally charged roles: Damon as a man who takes decades to get over the tolls of war, and Hathaway as a woman who won’t give up hope that her husband will return.
Robert Pattinson is perfect as one of the creepy suitors trying to marry Penelope, John Leguizamo steals every scene he’s in as Odysseus’ blind servant Eumaeus, and Samantha Morton is chilling as the goddess Circe, who has an interesting way of welcoming visitors to her island.
In a rare casting miss for Nolan, Zendaya’s portrayal of the goddess Athena is sadly not her best work. It has less to do with her talents and more to do with how she’s used: The role feels shoehorned into the movie, with Athena showing up in visions to Odysseus only so Nolan can include the well-known Greek goddess in the film.
Meanwhile, her real-life husband, Tom Holland, proves once again why he’s one of the best actors of his generation. His performance as Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, imbues the role with a potent mix of youthful naivety and genuine heroism.
‘The Odyssey’ feels like a mash-up of Nolan’s whole career — in a good way
“The Odyssey” is a retelling of Greek mythology, but it also functions as an appreciation of Nolan’s entire filmography.
Nolan fanatics will catch echoes of “Dunkirk” in the Trojan War soldiers waiting on a beach, trying to figure out how to get home; threads of “Interstellar” and “Inception” in Odysseus’ pain as a father in leaving his child behind; and bits of “Memento” in our hero’s difficulty remembering details of his past.
It’s a movie that Nolan simply could not have made earlier in his career, without his previous work coursing through his subconscious. Perhaps that’s why “The Odyssey” has remained in mine.
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