Translator Emily Wilson Criticizes Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey' Film

Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" has drawn strong box-office performance and positive audience reactions, but it has faced a severe critique from Emily Wilson, a respected translator of Homer’s works. In a review for the London Review of Books, Wilson said she had hoped Nolan’s familiarity with Homeric themes would lead to more nuanced storytelling, but found the film “a usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality.”

"The film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas."

She added that the adaptation lacks the thematic depth of the original poem, noting an absence of convincing treatment of time, memory, history, war, and personal relationships, and described the narrative structure as gimmicky. Wilson also criticized the screenplay and the lack of certain elements such as sex scenes and appealing food imagery.

"I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script."

Wilson acknowledged the difficulty of adapting a 2,800-year-old epic for modern audiences and recognized that the film has introduced the story to new viewers. She noted that recent translations of the Odyssey, including her own, are selling well and expressed hope that the movie might encourage universities to retain literature, language, and history programs. Wilson concluded by thanking Nolan for his effort to promote public interest in reading.