Review: The Odyssey
“Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey is peak Nolan. I didn’t check my watch until 2 hours into the film.” This was the endorsement of a Christian mentor yesterday. A day later, I can confirm. I likewise didn’t check the time until just around the two hour mark when Odysseus reaches the shores of Ithaca, when I wondered, is this the end? It was not.
I first read The Odyssey in Catholic school in 9th grade World Literature. I confess, I didn’t really get it. Odysseus, the hero of the Trojan War, can’t find his way home (stereotypical) and has affairs with Circe and Calypso—not the honorable hero I wanted to read about. And, whatsmore, when he returned home, he almost immediately set off again, seemingly abandoning his family, on a new voyage.
But Nolan offers a deeply Christian perspective on this fundamental story of the West. There’s none of that pre-Christian prerogative of the pater familias doing whatever he wants. Odysseus doesn’t sleep with Circe or Calypso. In fact, we don’t even see his intimacy with Penelope. His love for his wife is presented as chaste; not asexual, but ultimately, without conditions.
Furthermore, throughout the voyage, Odysseus’ paramount concern is for his men and his return to his family—from the cyclops’ cave, to Calypso’s island, where the story begins, Odysseus is the servant leader and, ultimately, the beggar knocking at the door of his own home. When Odysseus returns to his home hooded, identifying himself only as “A veteran of the Trojan War” to the squatting false bridegrooms, I found myself thinking about the Parable of the Wicked Tennants (cf. Matthew 21:33-38).
The Gospel parallels are most poignant, however, in the film’s climax, Odysseus, does what none of the other suiters can do—for he is the true bridegroom—and strings his bow. Afterwards, he satisfyingly cleans house of all the suiters, who like the pharisees, used the law of Zeus, to make claim to his wife. But in the end, Odysseus neither abdicates, lays claim to his throne, nor leaves his wife to sail off on his next adventure. Instead, like the chaste spouse, enthrones his son, Telemachus, and instead of leaving to adventure on alone, Nolan’s Odysseus invites Queen Penelope to sail West with him in honor of his companions.
