“Is Christopher Nolan Catholic?” That’s the first thing I googled upon exiting “The Odyssey.”
As a director, Nolan has built a filmography around tortured men: atomic-bomb patriarch J. Robert Oppenheimer, “Inception”’s dream wanderer Dom Cobb, “Interstellar”’s marooned Joseph Cooper. But Nolan’s latest protagonist, the Greek hero Odysseus, endures a barrage of suffering so relentless (and often self-directed), I half-expected an actual crown of thorns to be placed above his aged brow.
Turns out Nolan was indeed raised Catholic. But those from any (or no) religion may appreciate the sheer naturalistic spectacle of “The Odyssey,” Nolan’s $250 million ensemble piece shot entirely on IMAX film that alternately screams and churns across its three-hour runtime.
Hollywood stars line the cast: Matt Damon as the titular king; Anne Hathaway as his wife, Penelope; Tom Holland as their son, the presumed heir Telemachus; and Robert Pattinson as the scheming suitor Antinous. And while Damon wears the visage of suffering well, Hathaway’s pain may steal the show, particularly in one scene opposite a weary Holland who gathers strength through his mother’s agony.
Two dozen more famous faces streak across the film, sometimes in appearances so brief they take on a blink-and-you-miss-it quality. (No less a powerhouse than Charlize Theron supports in a tertiary role, and one of the first faces on screen is rapper Travis Scott.) Likewise, the fantastical elements of Odysseus’ journey materialize suddenly — the mythical Cyclops, a land of giants, the witch Circe — then recede. All of them cause Odysseus to grow grayer until he is spiritually alone, adrift and sedated by lotus flowers.
This is all somewhat boring to read on the page. (Don’t tell Homer.) In Nolan’s capable hands, Odysseus’ epic 20-year journey back to Ithaca is rendered with beautiful landscapes to support a trademark nonlinear narrative and scattered with missing pieces and the talismans the director loves. He can’t help making one of the oldest stories humans have into a bit of an anxious puzzle.
The relief that comes when those pieces snap into place — see also Nolan’s earlier work “The Prestige” and “Memento” — is akin to a drug taking effect. In “The Odyssey,” he uses Odysseus’ crowning achievement, the Trojan Horse, as the show-stopping centerpiece as well as the warrior’s original sin. It won the Trojan War, yes, but it broke the divine laws and violently drove humans away from each other.
For this, Odysseus must make himself pay.
In my favorite sequence, he commands his men to tie him to his ship’s mast so he can endure the song of the sirens while his men use wax to blot it out in their own ears. Damon, agonized, silently shrieks and writhes. It’s Catholic as hell! It’s also quiet. Nolan doesn’t allow us to hear the song because the scene is another vehicle for Odysseus’ pain.
It’s telling that, when Odysseus eventually returns to Ithaca to reclaim his throne from Johnnys-come-lately, the absent king takes the form of a beggar as if to echo Christ’s words, “Whatever you did to the least of my brothers and sisters, you did to me.” Then he proceeds to beat ass with a bow and arrow. After all, Nolan is the director of the most successful Batman trilogy to date. He understands the value of beating ass.
Homer’s Odyssey predates the Book of Job by a hundred years or so and the early gospels by about 500. But the relentlessness of suffering, specifically the suffering of one man, has been around as long as humans have. And while it’s not right to say Nolan has fun with Odysseus’ pain — he’s not Ari Aster — a beleaguered, eventually haggard Damon aiming to reclaim his glory is, in fact, fun to watch. I imagine it’s even better on IMAX 70mm film, though I saw it on 35mm.
The second thing I googled upon walking out of the theater was Alfred, Lord Tennyson’s 1883 poem “Ulysses,” in which the returned hero muses on his newly domestic life and eventually yields to his craving for adventure and glory. “Come, my friends,” he writes, “’T is not too late to seek a newer world.”
Of course, we know better. Though “The Odyssey” doesn’t brim with the same fire as Nolan’s Best Picture-winning masterpiece “Oppenheimer” or move with the kinetic energy of his most underrated film “Dunkirk,” I’m happy to follow the filmmaker wherever he keeps daring to adventure. Like Odysseus, no matter where you go, there you are.
