New ODYSSEY film is a triumph

"Why can't the gods speak in ways we understand?"

"Who doesn't understand thunder? Fire? A child's smile? A good harvest?"

Christopher Nolan's THE ODYSSEY opens with the words "A Time of Apparent Magic," immediately framing Homer's ancient epic as both myth and memory. 

What follows is an adaptation of gods, monsters, adventure and reckoning that shares a startling amount of DNA with Nolan's OPPENHEIMER, while somehow remaining both faith-affirming and atheistic, cynical yet hopeful, postmodern yet deeply nostalgic.

THE ODYSSEY is a film built on contradiction. It is about struggle, guilt and absolution. But one thing isn't up for debate: it is magnificent.

Like much of Nolan's work, the story unfolds through fractured chronology. Odysseus (Matt Damon, a shoo-in for a Best Actor nomination) has become stranded on Calypso's island in the final stretch of his journey home to Ithaca.

Calypso, played with surprising restraint by Charlize Theron, urges him to remember, not simply where he has been, but where he is trying to go.

Meanwhile, nearly a decade has passed since Odysseus sailed to Troy under Agamemnon's (Benny Safdie) command to reclaim Helen (Lupita Nyong'o), wife of Agamemnon's brother Menelaus (Jon Bernthal).

Believed dead, Odysseus' palace has become overrun by opportunistic suitors seeking the hand of Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and, with it, the throne of Ithaca. Standing in their way is Odysseus' son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), whose existence alone threatens their ambitions.

The suitors are led by the ruthless Antinous (Robert Pattinson). Yet despite their nightly excesses, Penelope cannot simply expel them because of xenia: Zeus' sacred law of hospitality requiring hosts to welcome strangers and guests to honor their hosts, lest they invite divine punishment.

Understanding xenia is key to understanding the film. In Greek mythology, the gods frequently walked among mortals in disguise. Treat every stranger with dignity because they may be divine—or, more simply, because every person deserves that dignity regardless.

Through Odysseus' recollections, Nolan guides us from the fall of Troy and the Trojan Horse through encounters with Circe, the Underworld, and countless other trials, each forcing Odysseus to confront the guilt born from the deception that won the war.

As spectacle, THE ODYSSEY is extraordinary.

This is Christopher Nolan operating at the height of his powers, decades removed from the filmmaker once criticized for clumsy action sequences and emotionally distant storytelling. Here, he seems determined to silence both criticisms.

Working once again with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan delivers perhaps the most visually arresting film of his career. Every frame possesses the grandeur of the classic Hollywood epics- not merely large in scale, but genuinely mythic.

Seen in IMAX, the film becomes overwhelming in the best possible way. Salt spray feels tangible. Grass bends beneath invisible wind. Steel carries the weight of blood. 

The sound design is thunderous, quite literally the loudest film I have ever experienced, but never empty. Ludwig Göransson's soaring score transforms the sheer volume into something transcendent.

Despite approaching three hours, the film never feels indulgent. Nolan builds each thread patiently before allowing them to collide in a third act whose emotional payoff feels not only earned but profoundly cathartic.

The ensemble is exceptional, though Damon towers above it.

His Odysseus is weathered, exhausted and haunted. At 55, Damon gives perhaps the finest performance of his career, channeling decades of accumulated experience into a man who has survived everything except himself.

For years, Damon has quietly drifted into the background of Hollywood despite beginning his career with an Academy Award for Good Will Hunting and becoming one of cinema's defining action stars through the Bourne films.

Here, he feels rediscovered.

If Damon owns the film, Samantha Morton nearly steals it with a remarkably brief appearance as Circe. She transforms the witch into something far more tragic than monstrous, a woman shaped by violence whose rage has calcified into cruelty. Her scenes linger long after they end.

Zendaya's Athena likewise leaves an unforgettable impression, though revealing why would spoil one of the film's most emotionally devastating moments.

Perhaps Nolan's greatest surprise, however, is his treatment of the women.

Long criticized for writing female characters as symbols rather than people, he grants genuine agency to Helen and her twin sister Clytemnestra (both played by Lupita Nyong'o). 

Helen is consumed by guilt over a war fought in her name but never of her choosing. Clytemnestra answers unimaginable grief with vengeance after Agamemnon sacrifices their daughter.

Calypso loves Odysseus enough to imprison him.

Penelope loves him enough to believe, despite everything, that he will come back. 

Circe, herself a victim of male violence, transforms men into speechless animals, stripping them of the autonomy once stolen from her.

None of these women exist merely to motivate Odysseus. They possess their own pain, convictions and contradictions.

Like OPPENHEIMER, THE ODYSSEY ultimately becomes the story of a man forced to reckon with what he has unleashed upon the world.

Nolan emphasizes the horror of the Trojan Horse not as a military triumph but as an original betrayal: a gift concealing death.

Odysseus wanders through burning Troy watching soldiers, women and children slaughtered because of a deception he conceived. Victory becomes indistinguishable from moral collapse.

That collapse echoes throughout the film.

In Ithaca, characters speak fearfully of the mysterious "Sea People," marauders who recognize neither law nor mercy. They reject xenia entirely, bringing with them the collapse of the old world.

The revelation of their identity becomes one of the film's most haunting observations about guilt and historical consequence.

Nolan's grounded interpretation of myth presents civilization standing on the edge of moral extinction. Yet it is never hopeless.

Again and again, the film insists redemption remains possible: not through conquest, but through humility, memory and choosing to honor those who came before.

When Odysseus asks Athena, "Why can't the gods speak in ways we understand?" she replies that they already do.

Through thunder. Through fire. Through the smile of a child. Through a good harvest.

Likewise, Calypso tells Odysseus that the only way home is to surrender. To let go and trust forces greater than himself.

Whether those forces are gods, nature, conscience or simply humanity itself is left deliberately unanswered.

Christopher Nolan has spent much of his career making films about extraordinary men attempting to control forces beyond their understanding. THE ODYSSEY may be the first where he suggests the answer isn't mastery at all.

It's faith.