I went to see The Odyssey expecting to watch The Odyssey. That might have been my first mistake. I knew Christopher Nolan wasn’t going to put Homer on the screen word for word. That’s not how movies work. I get that and I am fine with that, but somewhere during the movie I realized I wasn’t simply watching Homer’s story. I was watching Christopher Nolan have a conversation with Homer’s story.

And apparently, I’m the annoying guy sitting a few rows back wanting to raise my hand and say, “I’m sorry, but Homer didn’t say that.” Maybe it’s my age. I’m 51. I’ve lived in Austin long enough to watch this city grow into the global city it is today, and I’ve lived long enough to recognize some of the cultural conversations happening around me.

Modern Values, Ancient Texts

When Penelope talks about how men keep talking about an empty throne when she has essentially been ruling for twenty years, I don’t just hear Penelope. I hear 2026 moral values being pushed into a movie.

In that moment, the screenwriter is using a contemporary conversation about women, power and recognition placed into the mouth of an ancient character. The same thing happens with Odysseus and the Trojan Horse. Homer certainly presents Odysseus as emotionally affected by the Trojan War. But his cunning isn’t something he’s ashamed of in the original story. It’s part of what makes Odysseus a heroic story we still talk about today. 

Nolan gives us something different in 2026. His Odysseus carries the Horse more like a moral burden he must overcome, which is interesting but not exactly Homer. It’s fine if Nolan wants to create a movie that addresses cultural conversations of 2026, but it feels manipulative to attach those values to an ancient story.

My Moral Dilemma

When I’m reading an old book, listening to someone explain the Bible, or hearing someone describe an historical event, my first question is usually something like, “But what did they mean originally?” I want to understand someone within their own categories before importing mine. Apparently, I want filmmakers to do that too. As you can imagine, my wife loves watching movies with me.

In the End

For me, I love stories that allow me to discover what they’re saying. I like realizing ten minutes later, “Oh. That’s what that meant.” But when a character in an ancient story suddenly starts articulating an idea that sounds remarkably similar to a conversation we’re having on social media in Austin right now, I stop seeing Penelope. I get taken out of the moment and the magic of movies is broken!

And maybe that’s the distinction I’ve been missing. My frustration isn’t simply that The Odyssey changed things from Homer. Every adaptation changes things. It’s that Nolan has made a revisionist adaptation of a classical epic.

He doesn’t merely ask, “How can I put Homer’s story on a movie screen?” Instead there are moments he’s asking, “What if we reconsider what Homer thought was heroic?” It’s like, “C’mon Nolan, go make up your own story instead of ripping off Homer.”