NEW YORK (AP) 鈥� For Greek translator Emily Wilson, the release of director has been gratifying in various ways. Her acclaimed 2017 edition of Homer’s epic has reached the top 5 on Amazon.com, leading a wave of similar books boosted by the movie. Nolan has even cited her translation, notably the opening line 鈥淭ell me about a complicated man,鈥� as inspiration.
But the film itself, which during its opening weekend and has received raves from many critics, left her unsatisfied.
鈥淚 want to celebrate the fact that so many more people are aware of ‘The Odyssey’ and were brought back to the poem,鈥� she told The Associated Press. 鈥淏ut at the same time, I had the sense that Christopher Nolan was trying to pack everything in while missing themes that were essential to the poem.鈥�
One of the year’s most anticipated releases, 鈥淭he Odyssey鈥� stars as the returning warrior Odysseus, as his wife, Penelope, and as their son, Telemachus. Reviewers have praised the acting and the narrative drive, the grand scale of a movie shot entirely on IMAX film and how it weds the sensibilities of ancient Greece and the modern world, at least as Nolan perceives it.
The divide between scholars and critics seems in part a matter of whether the balance should tilt toward Nolan or Homer. Wilson and fellow translator Daniel Mendelsohn both expressed admiration for Nolan’s cinematic flair and ambition, what Mendelsohn calls his 鈥済reat visual panache.鈥� Both speculated that his desire to make a 鈥淐hristopher Nolan鈥� movie led to unfortunate decisions.
Mendelsohn is an author, critic and translator and his assessment appeared Friday in The New York Review of Books, where he is an editor-at-large.
Mendelsohn had previously defended Nolan’s controversial decision to cast a Black actor, Lupita Nyong鈥檕, as Helen of Troy, calling it a worthy way to 鈥減rovoke, challenge and discomfit how we think about beauty and identity.鈥� But he faulted the director for giving us an Odysseus with 鈥渘o cleverness, no humor, no wily charm.鈥� One of the Western canon’s formative tricksters has been transformed, he contended, into the kind of haunted protagonist featured in such previous Nolan movies as 鈥淥ppenheimer鈥� and 鈥淢emento.鈥�
鈥淭his tormented, guilt-ridden Odysseus, stripped of humor and wit, seductiveness and cleverness, is a sibling of Memento鈥檚 anguished amnesiac, of Batman, of Oppenheimer, men tormented by pasts they wrestle with in different ways,鈥� wrote Mendelsohn, whose 鈥淥dyssey鈥� translation came out in 2025. 鈥淣olan has merely remade Homer鈥檚 hero in his own image.鈥�
Author Gareth Hinds, whose graphic novel adaptation of 鈥淭he Odyssey鈥� has also received a sales bump from the movie, had a response similar to Mendelsohn’s about Nolan’s interpretation of Odysseus. The 鈥渨ily trickster and smooth talker鈥� is now an 鈥渆veryman who appears to be honorable, except in select situations which then continue to haunt him.鈥� For Hinds, Nolan’s film raises the question of how much you can change a story’s main character before the story itself is changed entirely.
鈥淭hat鈥檚 one of many interesting things Nolan has left us to ponder,鈥� says Hinds, who credits the director for creating a 鈥減owerful film.鈥�
Wilson, a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania, said she didn’t want to come across as a 鈥渟nobby,鈥� nitpicking expert at odds with any deviation from the original text. But she questioned a range of omissions and other choices, from the absence on screen of the Gods Zeus and Poseidon (Athena is played by ) to the 鈥渋ncoherent鈥� messaging that condemns both war and physical cowardice. She found Penelope’s role so thinned out that it endangered 鈥渁ny possibility of believing in this marriage.鈥� Wilson also that thought parts of the movie, notably the scenes with Odysseus’ dog, Argos, 鈥渃atered towards modern sentimentality.鈥�
鈥淓verybody’s a sucker for a dog,鈥� she said.
A spokesperson for Nolan did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Wilson declined to offer a grade or ranking for the movie, but said she would recommend it for others, as long as they see it in a theater.
鈥淚t was fun to be there with my kids. I didn鈥檛 feel it was pulling teeth to engage with it,鈥� she said. 鈥淚f you can see it on a big screen you should absolutely go.鈥�
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