âś… Clever screenplay moves and original motifs in a continuation of ancient storytelling traditions.
âś… Greek Tragedy already reshaped characters, giving everybody from Odysseus to Orestes the boy howdy treatment at times.
âś… The actors speak plain American English, not the conventional posh Greeklish bunk that would get them killed on sight by the Mycenaeans.
The idea to create an “authentic” Odyssey is an enormous vector space of not even wrong.
Addendum
Just read PZ Myer’s review which is lovely, so go read it (but only if you have already seen the movie). Oh, and the best of the lot so far: Leah Schnelbach’s review, with made me well up again several times.
Addendum II
I’ve always been a fan not only of Wilson’s translations of the Odyssey and later the Iliad but of her papers and interviews related to her profession in general, which I followed with great interest over the years. (While I can’t call myself a classicist by a long shot, I do have a solid classical education with official certificates in Latin, Ancient Greek, and Classical Hebrew; follow the field; and like to read texts in their original languages.) So this absolutely atrocious “film review” of hers came out of left field as a most unpleasant surprise. Many of her points can be discussed and are already being discussed, sustaining different arguments and different opinions (e.g., Leah Schnelbach’s review referenced above). But Wilson’s arguments are not made in good faith. As Ian Bogost aptly put it, “The problem isn’t the opinion. The problem is that she’s being an asshole.” And Joyce Carol Oates has also a point when she observes that Wilson isn’t “disagreeing with interpretations of Homer in a collegial manner” and that she should be “a wee bit more thoughtful & respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is.” Or historian Bret Devereaux, who points out that it was completely unnecessary to adopt a pose which “will be read by the huge swath of people who really liked the movie as a snotty, I-know-better-than-you bit of condescension.” (As of today, he has his own terrific review up.) Finally, as various academics have already elaborated on, she makes a number of ludicrous assertions in fields she’s obviously not an expert in—she’s a classicist, not a historian, philosopher, or film critic. So, yeah, this was completely uncalled for and only helpful in nurturing a certain public opinion that paints academia as a seething collection of insufferable arrogant asshats who need to be put in their place.
The Odyssey by Christopher Nolan, 2026.
Watched at the Lichtburg movie palace on July 20, 2026, in 70mm analog format without intermission in its original language.