$260 million in opening-weekend sales has made Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” a hit, but classicists Emily Wilson and Daniel Mendelsohn say the film misses essential parts of Homer’s epic.
Wilson said Nolan tried to pack in too much while sidelining core themes, criticizing the absence of Zeus and Poseidon, muddled messages on war and cowardice, and a reduced Penelope that weakens the marriage at the story’s center.
Mendelsohn and graphic novelist Gareth Hinds focused on Odysseus, arguing Nolan recast Homer’s witty, cunning trickster as a haunted, guilt-ridden protagonist closer to heroes from “Memento” or “Oppenheimer.”
The backlash is tempered by praise for Nolan’s visual ambition and by a commercial boost to the source material: Wilson’s 2017 translation reached Amazon’s top 5, and other “Odyssey” editions also gained sales.