The Odyssey (2026)

Odysseus is a war criminal, a murderer, easily distracted by pussy. Unfortunately, he’s played by a ripped and charming Matt Damon, so idiots will idolize him.

I want to start by saying, Christopher Nolan has been making the Odyssey his entire career.

Inception opens with Cobb waking up confused on a beach, desperate to return home to his children. Interstellar is Cooper crossing impossible distances while Murph waits decades. Dunkirk is soldiers clawing their way back across the sea. Tenet has Kat escaping a monstrous husband to reunite with her son. Oppenheimer is a man haunted by the horrors he wrought during the war. Men trying to get home. Women waiting. Time bending around the journey. Nolan’s been circling this story for twenty years. The Odyssey is the source code.

And now that he’s finally adapting it directly, the feminist reading feels almost unavoidable. This is a story about men being absolute monsters - pigs, sociopaths, murderers - taking advantage of women over and over while defining the rules of society to bend in their favor. The women are forced to bear it. Penelope tells Telemachus she’s not allowed to make the rules because she’s a woman. Circe, transforming Odysseus’s men back from pigs, says something like ” return to your disguise” which is commenting directly about masculinity as performance. As disguise.

Odysseus is a war criminal. Easily distracted. Responsible for the fall of peaceful Greek life. Unfortunately, he’s played by the charming and handsome and ripped Matt Damon, and he goes out swinging like John Wick after watching his dog die. A lot of men are going to valorize this. See his hubris against the gods as valorous. Wolf of Wall Street all over again - people missing that Belfort is the villain, wanting to be him instead. Damon might be too likable for the role. I don’t know who I’d cast instead, but someone you can hate more easily, maybe Oscar Isaac???

Nolan continues his streak of writing thin parts for women. Anne Hathaway gets the most to chew on as Penelope, and even that feels underwritten. And Zendaya plays Odysseus’s invisible friend. But at least this time the text itself is an indictment. The men are the problem. The film knows it.

The craft is undeniable. The score is incredible. The visuals are incredible. Staging, locales, filming - everything meticulously crafted. Several scenes I had tears welling up just from the images and music alone. It is a beautiful movie. You cannot deny it.

Also: this should have been so much hornier. There’s a lot of fucking in the Odyssey. Circe, Calypso, the sirens. Odysseus gets distracted for years. This was the most chaste telling I’ve seen. My yearning for horniness returning to cinema remains unfulfilled.

I don’t care if it’s faithful. Translation is never one to one. I’m grateful I avoided the conservative trolls worked up over Elliot Page and the Asian casting. Who cares? Missing the forest for the trees.

I’m not an Odyssey expert. My touchpoints are O Brother Where Art Thou and the Wishbone episode I watched as a kid. But I know enough to recognize what Nolan’s doing here - and to hope people actually hear what the film is saying.

Stray observations:

The cyclops was incredible - played by a real person, not CGI, and it looked like a Tool music video from 1996. Sandy skin, fucked up face. I loved that monster.

Robert Patterson is at his best when he’s playing a weasel. I continue to think he’s the best actor of our generation.

The Hades sequence floored me. One of the set pieces that’ll stick with me.

Elliot Page’s Sinon and the conversation with him was a highlight.

Benny Safdie as Agamemnon cracked me up - the director of Uncut Gems made to look absolutely jacked, hiding behind that great chin. After Agamemnon returns home and goes soft, they really hide him. Funny choice for the dorkiest guy in the cast.

John Leguizamo absolutely crushed it.

Travis Scott as the bard was a weird choice but fine. Not much to do.

Charlize Theron as Circe was solid. Zendaya as Athena worked, though I wanted more of her. Tom Holland as Telemachus was fine, nothing remarkable.

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