Classics Scholars Assess Christopher Nolan's Film Adaptation of The Odyssey

Classics professors evaluated Christopher Nolan’s recent film adaptation of Homer’s The Odyssey, noting both strengths and shortcomings. Emily Wilson, a University of Pennsylvania professor whose 2017 translation of the poem influenced the movie, said she felt the director tried to include too much while overlooking essential themes, particularly the portrayal of Penelope, which she said lacked credibility as a marriage partner.

University of Chicago associate professor Emily Austin described the film as “awesome,” highlighting Matt Damon’s nuanced, yet still likable, Odysseus and the movie’s focus on internal reflection, a trait she said is rarely shown in the ancient text. In contrast, CUNY Graduate Center professor Joel Christensen argued that Damon’s performance softened the morally ambiguous nature of the hero, making him appear overly good-natured.

Both scholars agreed that Nolan succeeded in structuring the narrative for modern audiences, weaving present-day action with flashbacks that convey Odysseus’s journey. Austin emphasized that the film captures the difficulty of reintegrating after long absence, while Christensen praised the clear storytelling that helps viewers unfamiliar with the source material.

The ending sparked divergent opinions. Austin welcomed the film’s more hopeful conclusion, where Odysseus and Penelope choose self-exile, avoiding the darker, cyclical vengeance of the poem’s final book. Christensen found the merciful resolution unsatisfying, preferring the original’s complex political fallout and the theme of collective forgetting.

Performance highlights included Samantha Morton’s portrayal of Circe, which Christensen said added depth by suggesting a backstory of trauma, and the siren scene, praised for its internal deliberation. Overall, the scholars found the action sequences, such as the Trojan horse and the sacking of Troy, to be effectively realized, even as they noted the film’s departures from Homer’s nuanced moral landscape.

"I had the sense that Christopher Nolan was trying to pack everything in while missing themes that were essential to the poem," Wilson told the Associated Press. "Part of the danger of Odysseus, and also the allure, is that we find ourselves rooting for him, even though we know he might be wrong. There’s none of that edge in Nolan’s movie," Christensen said. "Matt Damon’s Odysseus is appropriately likable and kind of responsible. The epics are ambiguous about how much he’s responsible for the death of his men," Austin said. "I think (Nolan) put together a coherent narrative and he met the most significant challenge, which is giving sufficient information to audience members who don’t know anything to understand and enjoy the story," Christensen added. "I hate the ending of the poem. The ending is super dark. The vengeance is a cycle that just ends up repeating, and the only way in the actual poem that you get it to end is gods end it, and they make a forgetting," Austin said. "What frustrates me is that it set him up to be merciful at the end. The men kneel down and he’s just like, ‘OK, I’m in exile now. Let’s go.’ Which, it’s just weird," Christensen said.