Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is based on one of the oldest and most widely known stories in the world, but knowing the basic journey does not mean knowing how Nolan will tell it.
Unlike some of Nolan’s other movies, The Odyssey does not require viewers to solve a puzzle simply to understand what is happening.
Inception, Interstellar and especially Tenet can leave audiences trying to untangle dreams, physics or the movement of time after the credits roll. Some viewers may need to watch them more than once before everything connects.
The Odyssey still gives its audience plenty to think about, but the basic story is easy to follow. Anyone with even a general knowledge of Greek myth should be able to settle in and enjoy the movie without doing homework or planning several repeat viewings just to understand the plot.
One of the film’s strongest realizations is also one of its cleverest choices.
Nolan does not hide the answer in the usual sense. He allows the audience to notice pieces of it while keeping the connection just out of reach. Viewers may sense that something is happening before Odysseus understands it, but they are unlikely to recognize its full meaning until he does.
When the realization finally arrives, it feels less like a surprise added at the end and more like something that had been sitting in plain sight throughout the movie.
Before its release, some online discussions focused on the casting and what commenters dismissed as “woke nonsense.” Whatever viewers thought about those arguments, they quickly became irrelevant to me once the movie began. There is simply too much happening on screen.
The film moves from one extraordinary image to another, relying heavily on real locations, large constructions and practical sets. By the time viewers begin wondering how one sequence was created, Nolan has already moved on to something even more ambitious.
The cinematography, costumes and production design are remarkable. There are moments when the screen looks less like a movie and more like a painting that has started moving.
The dialogue was another surprise.
At one point, a character uses the word “Dad.” That should sound too modern for a story set in ancient Greece, but it does not feel out of place.
These characters would have spoken Greek, not English. Audiences have simply become accustomed to people from ancient or European settings speaking in formal British accents. Nolan does not always follow that tradition, and the more familiar language helps the characters feel like people rather than figures trapped inside a history book.
The movie is also filled with prominent actors, even in supporting roles, and that depth shows.
Himesh Patel gives Eurylochus, Odysseus’s second-in-command, an identity that stands apart from the famous faces around him. John Leguizamo is also memorable as Eumaeus.
Anne Hathaway brings a quiet strength to Penelope, while Zendaya gives Athena a presence that makes the character immediately recognizable. These performances bring individual qualities to characters who could easily have been lost inside the size of the production.
Matt Damon is good as Odysseus, but I never completely stopped seeing Matt Damon.
He gives a capable performance and carries the movie well. However, there is little about his characterization that fully separates Odysseus from the determined, intelligent and physically exhausted men Damon has played before.
Tom Holland also gives a capable performance as Telemachus, although I never fully stopped seeing the familiar actor behind the character.
Neither performance damages the movie. It simply becomes noticeable beside supporting actors who bring more distinctive characteristics to their roles.
Nolan has made disturbing movies before. Memento and Insomnia entered uncomfortable psychological territory, while Oppenhiemer found horror in the consequences of human ambition.
Even so, The Odyssey contains something more disturbing than many Nolan fans may expect. Without revealing what happens, I will only say that it may return to your mind the next time you sit down for dinner.
It is uncomfortable, but that does not make it a failure. Art is not required to make an audience feel safe or comfortable. It is sometimes supposed to provoke thoughts and ideas that remain after the movie ends. The Odyssey does that well.
The film is not without moments that require the audience to suspend disbelief.
There is an expression in Malayalam, “Kathayil Chodhyam Illa,” which roughly carries the idea that a story is not always meant to be questioned at every turn. The closest English expression would be “suspension of disbelief.”
There are parts of The Odyssey where that expression applies. Viewers could stop and question whether every decision makes sense or whether something could have happened exactly as it is shown.
Then again, this is a story built from mythology and passed down from a world thousands of years removed from our own. Accepting the impossible is part of the journey.
I watched The Odyssey in IMAX 70mm at the Kramer IMAX Theatre in Regina. The expanded presentation showed more of the image above and below what audiences will see in a conventional widescreen theatre.
The scale was enormous, and there were moments when the image seemed to extend beyond what I could take in at once.
The theatre also gave attendees at my screening an original strip of IMAX film from the movie. Therefore, if anyone questions whether I actually made the journey to Regina, I now have physical evidence.
Still, the IMAX presentation did not create one effect Nolan is known for using in several of his other movies.
Nolan often shifts between a conventional widescreen frame and the taller IMAX format during the same movie. When the screen suddenly opens up during a major sequence, it can change the tone and focus of the moment. It feels as though the viewer has suddenly stepped into something larger and more immersive.
An original IMAX film strip from Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” given to moviegoers during a screening at the Kramer IMAX Theatre in Regina, is held against the evening light.
That effect works because the audience can see the difference between the two aspect ratios.
The Mandalorian and Grogu provides another example of what I mean. When large ships, space battles or enormous objects appear, the frame opens up to give viewers a fuller picture and a stronger sense of scale.
The Odyssey does not create that same sudden change because the IMAX 70mm presentation uses its expanded frame throughout the movie. There is no transition from a smaller image into a taller one, so the audience does not experience that moment when the screen unexpectedly opens up.
The movie still looks extraordinary in IMAX, but that particular effect is missing. Because of that, watching it in a conventional widescreen format does not feel like losing one of Nolan’s most recognizable IMAX techniques.
I also spent part of the movie thinking about how its images would look in a regular theatre.
Many of the compositions would work perfectly well in a wider presentation. In some scenes, the expanded IMAX frame mainly showed more sky, ground, headroom or the top of an actor’s hair.
It is not essential to see the top of someone’s hair when the important action and the expressions on the actors’ faces remain clearly visible.
IMAX 70mm is an extraordinary way to see The Odyssey, but it is not a requirement.
Prince Albert audiences should not feel they are receiving an incomplete movie by watching it at Galaxy Cinemas. The screen may show less at the top and bottom, but the performances, costumes, practical craftsmanship, sound and unsettling ideas remain.
In some ways, the wider presentation may offer a different but equally effective experience. Several shots appeared as though they had also been carefully composed with conventional theatres in mind.
The Odyssey is not flawless. It asks viewers to accept some questionable moments, while its two most recognizable leading men never completely stop feeling like movie stars.
However, Nolan has created something beautiful, strange, uncomfortable and difficult to forget.
Art is not supposed to be comfortable all the time. It is supposed to make people think.
The Odyssey does that.
arjun.pillai@paherald.sk.ca
Arjun Pillai the City Hall reporter for the Prince Albert Daily Herald. When not covering the news he enjoys relaxing with a good movie.
