On Screen: “The Odyssey”
The Odyssey
Characterized by mythic storytelling, extravagant production values and brawny heroes, sword-and-sandals movies (“Ben-Hur,” “Spartacus,” “Gladiator”) have enjoyed tremendous popularity. Add “The Odyssey” to that list.
British filmmaker Christopher Nolan, collaborating with Dutch cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema and production designer Ruth De Jong, envisions Homer’s nearly 3,000-year-old, nonlinear epic poem as a weary Greek warrior’s tortuous journey home.
Filled with challenges and conflict, it can be viewed as an exciting, episodic adventure saga or, delving deeper, as an allegory about the consequences of temptation in a man’s spiritual quest for identity and enlightenment.
“In a time of apparent magic …” while Ithaca’s King Odysseus (Matt Damon) spent 10 years fighting the Trojan War, traveling home took almost as long, including a forgetful seven-year interlude with seductive Calypso (Charlize Theron), who fed him exotic Lotus to generate amnesia and ease his PTSD.
Following a fragmented timeline, yet guided by Athena (Zendaya), Goddess of Strategic Warfare and Wisdom, Odysseus barely escapes from the cave of the one-eyed giant Cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin), the sea god Poseidon’s son, before his men must plug wax in their ears as they sail past the Sirens whose songs lure sailors to their doom.
When starvation sets in, Odysseus’ crew searches for food on an island belonging to Circe (Samantha Morton), a vindictive enchantress who serves a sinewy stew that turns them into gluttonous pigs.
Then there are the lessons inherent in choosing between the massive whirlpool Charybdis and Scylla, a multi-headed sea monster, as Odysseus faces sacrifice and the inevitability of loss. The phrase “caught between Scylla and Charybdis” epitomizes being caught between a rock and a hard place.
Meanwhile in Ithaca, loyal Queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) prepares their son Telemachus (Tom Holland) while fending off hundreds of freeloading suitors, led by conniving Antinous (Robert Pattinson). Zeus’s law required hospitality be extended to everyone, since a visitor or beggar could be a Greek god in disguise.
Unfortunately, some of Christopher Nolan’s casting choices prove distracting. It’s difficult to separate Tom Holland from Spider Man’s Peter Parker — and does Kenyan-Mexican actress Lupita Nyong’o really personify Helen of Troy’s eternal beauty … “the face that launched a thousand ships?”
On the other hand, Matt Damon distinguishes himself along with Anne Hathaway, Samantha Morton and Himesh Patel as Eurylochus, Olysseus’s second-in-command.
As for the three-hour running time, Christopher Nolan should have judiciously edited those seemingly endless, often repetitive scenes of bloody slaughter.
On the Granger Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Odyssey” is an immersive, visually spectacular 8, playing in theaters.
Susan Granger is a product of Hollywood. Her natural father, S. Sylvan Simon, was a director and producer at M.G.M. and Columbia Pictures. Her adoptive father, Armand Deutsch, produced movies at M.G.M.
As a child, Susan appeared in movies with Abbott & Costello, Red Skelton, Lucille Ball, Margaret O’Brien, and Lassie. She attended Mills College in California, studying journalism with Pierre Salinger, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism.