Some spoilers ahead.
I watched the film at the Grand Sunshine Ikebukuro in Tokyo on Wednesday Oct 21, 2026. I will definitely watch it more times.
First, as quickly as possible, Nolan establishes several “engines” that will drive the movie forward — these are the mysteries or big unresolved questions that make the viewer care for the story.
1. “Where is Odysseus? Why isn’t he back yet? What happened to him? Will he be back? When?”
2. “What will happen in Ithaca? Will the suitors get to Penelope? Will they kill Tom Holland and seize the throne?”
(I’ll just call him Tom Holland because I don’t remember his character’s name)
3. “If Odysseus does come back, what will he do about the suitors in his house? Will they kill him?”
#1 and #3 represent the mystery, and #2 represents the stakes.
“Odysseus is missing” isn’t a story.
“Odyssesus is missing, while hundreds of men have entered his home and are ready to screw his wife and kill his son, servants, and dog” is a story.
Another reason why “Odysseus is missing” or “Odysseus wants to get home” isn’t a movie is because from the very outset, Nolan also softly hints that he was part of the team that directly led to the rape and destruction of Troy. So the viewer doesn’t necessarily LIKE Odysseus at first.
(We’ll come back to this “very outset” moment because the very first scene of the film, with the Bard played by Travis Scott, accomplishes several things at once. What a beautiful piece of writing.)
Without the loyal wife, son, dog, and servants who are waiting for Odysseus to come back and save them from peril (while also trying their best to manage things without him), the story doesn’t have a heart. Odysseus’ family aren’t portrayed as damsels in distress — they are strong, but just outnumbered. There are also bigger dangers far out in the horizon: there are rumors of “sea peoples” ravaging across distant lands, and it may only be a matter of time before they reach Ithaca.
The performances of the actors further help sell these stakes to us. Penelope is portrayed by Anne Hathaway, with a mix of fury at her situation and desperate longing for her husband, oscillating between hope and despair, makes it gut-wrenching for the viewer to imagine a future where they never re-unite. Everyone else — Tom Holland, John Leguizamo, and even the dog do their job well.
Nolan tries to build up Odysseus, to create awe and empathy around the hero. We are shown flashbacks to support his character: he saves a puppy, and even fights hogs with honor (plucking his loud bow to warn his prey that he’s trying to hunt them). We are also told that he joined the war unwillingly, doing it to protect Ithaca from the king Agamemnon. “He’s a good guy, you can root for him.”
Eventually, we find Odysseus in the flesh. He’s on a beach, seemingly lost and having amnesia. He tries to recollect his memories, which show his efforts (all in flashback) trying to get back and the troubles that HE went through.
Here, Nolan answers the sub-question of “where is Odysseus”, but raises an even bigger mystery — how did he get here?
If the big questions 1-3 above are the engines that form the big arc of the film, then the adventures of Odysseus and his men (cyclops, circe, the giants, etc) make up the short-term thrills, scares, and action that make an entertaining motion picture.
The non-linear storytelling of the film help to keep emphasizing the stakes, and to keep the tension high:
We know that Ithaca is in peril. Once that is established, we can’t spend all our time there in a single stretch.
Ithaca is in peril —> Odysseus trying to remember who he is —> OMG, an impossible monster —> repeat.
As soon as one situation gets resolved and the tension gets released, he switches over to a different situation and raises the tension.
Then finally, we get to the core premise — the theme of the film.
The theme of the film, in my view, is this: war crimes beget more war crimes. By using a trick to burn Troy, they set the whole world on fire.
Odysseus’ realization that breaking Zeus’ Law is the beginning of the end of humanity as they know it. It is the theme that gets visited throughout.
To be honest, I’m still not good at themes, whether I’m watching a film or writing one. What confused me especially in The Odyssey was that his depiction of “Zeus’ Law” (xenia) to me was more one-sided (treat every guest like they could be a God in disguise), but the other side of it wasn’t made obvious (i.e. guests, in return, must not exploit their host’s generosity).
The Trojan horse broke Zeus’ Law for good. it sent a message to the world that being trust and reciprocity was dangerous. Your guest is more likely to be a demon in disguise than a god.
The movie also seemed to insinuate that it is Odysseu’s guilt that ultimately keeps him away from Ithaca for so long, but the events of the film did not make it obvious to me at first.
Though on second thought, there are a few points where you see him make decisions that support the insinuation, such as when he decides to take a different path from Agamemnon back from Troy, even though that path would be the safest, because “he has followed Agamemnon enough” and that he first wants to “see a bit of the world” a little.
Or when he fires an arrow at Cyclops when it seems like a dumb, immature thing to do.
There’s also a hint in what he says at one point: “no one can keep my men away from home, not even me” — as if he didn’t necessarily want to go back home himself.
Okay, now that I think of it, Nolan has a point. He didn’t at any point in the journey show a deep desire to get back home — only the desire to look around and keep his men alive. In a way, it IS his own guilt that sabotaged the journey. The obstacles they faced, were in a way direct manifestations of his own deep desire. The only thing that gently kept tugging at him to go back was his love for his wife. In a way, you can see Nolan’s film as a love story.
