‘The Odyssey’ review: Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious film might also be his best?

Homer, handled with care

Readers familiar with Homer’s epic poem will find an adaptation that takes its own liberties while holding onto the scale, emotional depth and intricate storytelling the original is known for. It is adapted with a level of respect and attention to detail that is captivating rather than dutiful. Nolan’s non-linear structure keeps the audience working rather than simply following along, a choice that suits a story built on digression and delayed homecoming as much as on war.

The plot picks up where the Trojan War ends: Troy has fallen to the horse strategy credited to Odysseus himself, and the Greek generals set out for home after ten years away. For Odysseus and his men, the return to Ithaca is anything but direct. Treacherous waters, hostile islands and one misfortune after another turn the journey home into the film’s emotional core, growing murkier with each detour.

There is a thematic undercurrent beneath it, too. The Trojan horse marks a real decay of what might be called Zeus’s law, the code of honour meant to govern man and society. The winds shift here from contests of strength to betrayal and dishonour despite victory, bringing the basest instincts of man to the fore rather than letting the Greeks’ triumph go unquestioned.

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Craft without excess

The cinematography by van Hoytema is beautiful throughout and reflects Nolan’s evident love affair with the film medium itself. Dark scenes play out much as the eye would actually perceive them, while the colours of sea, sky and land stay distinct, vibrant and alive against that darkness. Visual effects are used sparingly, just enough to make the film’s mythic moments believable without tipping into spectacle for its own sake. That balance, between spectacle and feeling, is where The Odyssey does its best work, and where its cast earns the film its weight.

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An ensemble worthy of the frame

Matt Damon’s performance as Odysseus is a career best. He brings an everyman’s appeal to the role, likeable and approachable, while carrying the strength and quiet intimidation expected of a hero and a king, with flashes of the same physical authority he brought to Jason Bourne. He leaves you in awe of Odysseus himself while drawing you into the film’s premise, so that his conviction becomes the audience’s way in.

Anne Hathaway surpasses her already heartfelt work in Interstellar, bringing a layered depth to Penelope that makes her one of the film’s most quietly demanding performances, composed, worn down and, at moments, a little unhinged, clinging to fragments of hope that her husband is alive. Much of that torment is carried through her eyes alone, in close-up.

Robert Pattinson brings his A-game to Antinous, avoiding the obvious traps of playing a suitor circling another man’s household, with a restraint that makes him more unsettling than a broader performance would have allowed. Tom Holland is the film’s genuine surprise, bringing a depth that sets this apart from his Spider-Man work; his Telemachus is young and naive but never stupid, carrying himself with a courage drawn from his father without imitating it.

Zendaya, as Athena, is exactly what Nolan reportedly called her after a take: perfect—beautiful, anguished, kind and merciful all at once. Charlize Theron is magnetic as Calypso, an incredible guide to Odysseus through the film’s most treacherous stretch, and one of the performances that lingers longest.

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One unsurprising standout is Jon Bernthal who brings his signature bravado, masculinity and seriousness to Menelaus. A characterisation made uniquely his own but obviously gleaned from his portrayals of The Punisher and even The Walking Dead’s Shane Walsh. Those who troubled themselves with Lupita Ngyong’o’s casting as Helen may find her layered portrayal of the character’s twin sister Clytemnestra lingering. The actress gives audiences versions of women teetering at the edge—weighed down by expectations yet eager to claim their own selves.

Taken together, the ensemble does what the format demands: performances big enough to hold a 70mm frame without losing the human detail that makes the story worth caring about. A film this expensive and dependent on being seen at scale is a wager that audiences still want a reason to leave the house, and Nolan makes one of the more convincing cases in recent memory that they do.

Verdict

The Odyssey is peak Nolan and, in its own way, peak cinema—achieving exactly what it sets out to do. A close comparison is Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite, a film where every element of the craft seemed to sing the same note in unison; The Odyssey reaches for that same synchronicity, pulling together the full range of cinema’s ambitions into one epic.

Nolan pushes the boundaries of the medium with the IMAX format, brings a long-beloved story to life with real fidelity, appeals to audiences with genuine entertainment value and a fully realised world, and still finds room for emotional depth, leaving you rooting for the hero, for good, for resolution. It gives you a ride worth the ticket price, and that is exactly what cinema is for: spectacle drawn out of the mundane, a chance to feel something and see ourselves in the hero.

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There is something universal in Odysseus’s struggle against insurmountable odds, feeling defeated by forces larger than ourselves, lost on our own personal sea. It is a strong contender for Nolan’s best work, which is saying a great deal given Oppenheimer, Memento, Inception, Interstellar and The Dark Knight.

There is also something fitting about watching Nolan, a director who began as an independent filmmaker and has spent years pushing IMAX technology towards this exact moment, deliver the first film ever shot entirely on the format. In The Odyssey, Nolan finds his own version of homecoming, arriving, after a long journey of his own, exactly where he set out to go.

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