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OK, film bros, after shouldering through theater rows and watching you mindlessly hold my cup holders hostage this opening weekend, I do agree with you: Christopher Nolan’s latest cinematic conquest, The Odyssey, is undoubtedly a macho epic. Full of majestic battle sequences and treacherous sea voyages, all woven into the fabric of that thunderous IMAX frame, my bros have plenty of reason to leave the theater feeling like they, too, conquered Troy.
But about an hour in, after all that testosterone settled and those operatic war drums faded, I’m watching Matt Damon’s grand personification of our famed Greek hero, Odysseus, thinking that the movie was not one of the most epic war dramas, but quite possibly one of the most romantic love stories ever. I mean, a man traveling years across a cursed, raging sea to get to the woman he loves may be the most committed act of yearning we’ve ever seen. Read on for my review of The Odyssey and why Nolan’s bold imagining of the famous “hero’s journey” tale may actually be for the girls.
What is The Odyssey about?
One of the most influential stories of all time, Homer’s Odyssey, a Greek myth, is arguably one of our earliest origins of great storytelling. Your favorite local bookstore undoubtedly has a copy or 12 lying around, and its structural influence can be found everywhere in movies today. Believe it or not, even The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie pays homage to the mythological epic. It has quite literally transcended time, constantly retold through different eras on screen. And now, in the hands of Christopher Nolan, one of cinema’s most ambitious storytellers, the story is getting a reimagining of mighty proportions.
In Nolan’s adaptation, The Odyssey remains pretty faithful to Homer’s telling, following Odysseus (Matt Damon), a Greek war hero, and his journey home from the Trojan War. In Odysseus’s 10-year journey across the Mediterranean Sea, he sails through a dangerous path full of mythological creatures, monsters, and the wrath of Poseidon. But as Odysseus fights to return home to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway), his biggest enemy, he finds, is the tragedies of war that haunt him.
The bold ambition and epic scale of this version is what is really rattling the cinemaverse. From IMAX camera technology invented specifically for this movie’s production to towering Trojan Horse props and a star-studded cast of Gods and warriors—Zendaya, Tom Holland, and Charlize Theron—the film’s aspirational grandeur is something only a filmmaker like Nolan could pull off with resonance. And he arguably already has, as The Odyssey is currently Nolan’s highest-rated film ever, and has already made over $260 million worldwide after opening weekend. But beneath all that glory and honor? Nolan has also made a love story for the ages.
My review of The Odyssey
It’s swimming with intense romance tropes
While the film may be dressed in armor, swords, and enough mythological chaos to satisfy all 56% of the film bros who make up most of the domestic audience for this movie so far, the real heartbeat of the film is a story about two soulmates trying to fatefully find their way back to each other. Even if they have to defy the gods.
“This is a story driven by conquest and tragedy, but even more so by longing—a man whose greatest motivation isn’t lust for glory, but getting home to the woman and city he loves.”
Strip it down, the center of The Odyssey is the painful, all-consuming yearning between Penelope and Odysseus that a lot of our romance stories have been quietly chasing around for centuries. In The Odyssey, Odysseus isn’t fighting through 10 years of impossible trials because he wants glory or another victory to add to his name. Guys, he’s doing it because he wants to get back to his god damn wife. Holding onto the pin that she gave him before he left for Troy like a guiding Siren song, the man is literally battling the sea itself in pursuit of a tearjerking homecoming scene. A level of romantic longing and yearning for the Olympic elite.
Nolan, unequivocally, delivers that emotional feeling in a way that makes their love feel so powerful it’s almost something to fear. So, to my respectable cinephile bros, while I do see the “disheveled man conquers the tragedies of war” narrative that you might walk away with after this film, I raise you the far more impactful “disheveled man challenges the sea and the gods because he wants to get back home to his wife” storyline.
Odysseus’ story has always been romance in disguise
Nolan’s story is packed full of epic nostalgia. But I think Nolan and even Homer know that when you strip away the armor and war plotlines, this is, firstly, one of the most romantic movies of our time. The yearning, the longing, the journeys for love, the things that make The Odyssey voyage great are the very same emotional structures that have powered our love stories for centuries. Just look at many of our other iconic favorites that follow, like The Notebook and Love Actually, both proposing love as something that can conquer any transcendence of time—if it’s real, true, and unwavering enough. This “star-crossed lovers” plot in The Odyssey just happens to be dressed head to toe in war, conquering the theme of love rather than softly feeling it. I do wonder why cinematic experiences like romance are taken so seriously when a main character is holding a sword, but in other romantic contexts aimed at primarily female audiences, they are laid out as clichés. Feels like a double-edged…never mind.
While Penelope’s journey is dutiful, strong, and rich thanks to Hathaway’s performance, which definitely helps cascade it out of the “wife waits for man to finish his destiny” trope, Odysseus’s story is where that agonizing pain of love is evident in this movie. He’s literally crossing impeccable distances and enduring unimaginable suffering to achieve his final victory after two decades of being lost: reuniting with his wife. As it turns out, I think, literature’s most famous war hero is actually a super-duper romantic.
It’s Nolan’s most emotional movie he’s ever made
In the beginning of the film, love is hidden beneath epic battles, but it really does become impossible to ignore by the end when Odysseus’ bowstrings begin to sing in that final homecoming scene. Watching him fight for his wife again after all these years, The Odyssey might actually be Christopher Nolan’s first film that is, dare I say, for the girls. A surprising yet embraced contrast to a director criticized for significantly underwitting his female characters. And it’s maybe in that shift that the story gains a richer core than he has ever achieved before, as he finally gives his female characters more weight.
“The things that make The Odyssey voyage great are the very same emotional structures that have powered our love stories for centuries.”
Anne Hathaway’s Penelope in particular was a powerful force in the film, who really brought a lot of the moral and emotional light to the story. She is still a familiar archetype in Nolan’s movies: A woman watching a man pursue destiny. But the level of emotional complexity she brings to the role really counters that male-centric POV throughout the film, and puts her and Odysseus’s love at the beating heart of the film.
A Nolan movie shan’t dare sacrifice the cinematic Bible of theatrics, but the way he makes something so big and godlike while still keeping the movie remarkably human is a level of emotional intensity I have not experienced before in a Nolan film. This is arguably his most emotional and human film thanks to Hathaway’s performance, which added a level of agency to the story I have been craving in his work. All thanks to love.
So, should you watch Nolan’s The Odyssey?
It is an undeniable fact that Christopher Nolan has established himself as a cinematic Titan. If not with his prior accomplishments like Memento, Interstellar, or Oppenheimer, then his latest imagining, The Odyssey, certainly reaffirms his standing as he takes on one of the greatest mythological stories ever told. Of course, with a creative stature like Nolan’s, it’s a little redundant to say that one of the greatest directors of all time inevitably made something great. But at the sheer scale on which Nolan’s Odyssey is being made—emotionally and physically—the recognition deserves the echo.
Watching Benny Safdie’s Agamemnon ascend upon the gates of Troy through fire and blood was a very specific moment that will inevitably lodge itself in memory. But the core of this movie’s voyage, while treacherous and macho, is still incredibly, undeniably friggin romantic.
This is a story driven by conquest and tragedy, but even more so by longing—a man whose greatest motivation isn’t lust for glory (whoa) but getting home to the woman and city he loves. Even if Nolan so elegantly dresses that devotion up in armor and blood, the emotional final act of the film reveals the truth hiding beneath all the epic grandeur: The Odyssey is 1000% a love story. And it’s one best enjoyed in a theater seat.
Madigan Will, Contributing Writer
As a contributing writer and former Assistant Editor for The Everygirl, Madigan has written and edited content across every topic under the digital media sun. As the oldest of four siblings, she brings a big-sister perspective to her work, helping readers discover new ways to maximize their everyday.
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This article was originally published on The Everygirl
