A University of Pennsylvania scholar whose translation of Homer’s “The Odyssey” helped inspire filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster movie interpretation of the the 2,700-year-old story says she’d be “embarrassed” to have worked on the epic project.
“It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours,” Emily Wilson wrote for the London Review of Books.
In a November interview with Empire magazine, Nolan credits Wilson’s interpretation of the ancient Greek tale for beginning with an offer to tell a tale “about a complicated man.”
While playfully stating she was “humbled” by that attribution, Wilson blasts Nolan’s main character as being unremarkable, much like the film itself.
“It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth,” she writes.
Wilson finds the film’s narrative structure to be “gimmicky” and calls the writing “abysmal.”
“None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words,” she said.
Wilson goes so far as to complain there’s not enough sex in the story and faults the food for looking “horrible.”
Audiences and film critics have reacted to the star-studded flick quite differently. Variety said the nearly 3-hour movie has made more than $650 million since its July 17 release. RogerEbert.com awarded the film with a 4-star review that credits Nolan with creating a work of art.
“Technically, as you’d expect from this director, the movie is mightily impressive, for its scale, the graceful way it moves from one time period to another, and for the tactility of its imagery,” that outlet praised.
But Wilson dismisses the $250 million production as “an entertaining way to hide from the high temperatures for a few hours” that her teenagers enjoyed.
The film’s few critics thus far have largely comprised right-wing activists taking issue with Nolan’s casting of some actors who aren’t white. Wilson complains that, even then, the characters of color “play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.”
She does manage to say something somewhat nice about the acclaimed director, who won an Academy Award for his 2023 “Oppenheimer” biopic about the father of the nuclear bomb.
“Unlike some of Nolan’s other films, ‘The Odyssey’ is not boring, thanks to the source material, which is impossible to mess up entirely,” she admits.
Her essay also has a happy ending.
According to Wilson, despite all of its alleged flaws, “The Odyssey” is a film to celebrate for drawing audiences to movie theaters and maybe even getting more people to read books.
Nolan’s representatives haven’t replied to a request for comment.
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