RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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Professor Emily Wilson has published critically acclaimed translations of "The Iliad" and " The Odyssey ," and her succinct, unadorned language has been cited by Nolan as an influence on his version of the story of one of Greek Mythology's most famous, and most complicated , men. Wilson, a longtime contributor to the London Review of Books, wrote a review, of sorts, of the Christopher Nolan film and spoke on the publication's podcast about her reaction to it. The professor of Classical Studies at the University of Pennsylvania had some notes. Related Stories Sundance Names Six Fellows for 2026 Trans Possibilities Intensive 'Hadestown' Didn't Put Up 'The Odyssey' Numbers, but the Musical Had a Historic Box Office Weekend
Wilson tries to fire her critique through, if not 12, then at least several axes. She acknowledges Nolan is as well within his rights to shape an "Odyssey" adaptation to his own ends as Virgil was in writing "The Aeneid," or James Joyce, or Margaret Atwood, or anybody else who tackles the popular myths surrounding the fall of Troy. The scholar also points out that "The Odyssey" itself was an attempt to make those stories grander, more exciting, and more thematically engaging for a contemporary audience (in 7th-century BCE Greece). Nor does she give credence to any misplaced notions of historical accuracy (the poem itself isn't historically consistent) or the bad faith attacks on the film's casting that have been cynically fueling the right-wing outrage machine.
But Wilson had few kind words about the project Nolan's adaptation engages in: its thematic anxieties about the sense of doom around the American Empire (aka the Bronze Age Collapse ) and the rot of unjust wars and xenophobia. "Nolan's Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great," Wilson writes. "It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior's glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."
She critiques the characterization of Odysseus (Matt Damon) as being particularly simplistic; of the women in the film being as underdeveloped as, well, as women in Christopher Nolan films often are criticized to be; and of the film's perspective sidestepping offering any humanity to the victims of violence in favor of valorizing the perpetrators of violence. "Any serious depiction of violence, ancient or modern, must show the perspectives of the victims as well as the perpetrators, and the Homeric poems easily clear the bar – but Nolan doesn't," Wilson writes.
Wilson especially takes Nolan's writing to task and, at one point, the professor writes that she would be ashamed to have been credited with the screenplay. Although Wilson reserves the "most troubling ethical problem," in her words, for the production's choice to shoot in the Western Sahara without the consent or cooperation of the indigenous Sahrawi people — the territory is mostly occupied by Morocco, and Sahrawi artist Mohamed Sleiman Labat recently wrote an op-ed in The Guardian about the harsh conditions imposed by the Moroccan government while using foreign film crews for a "romantic, tourist-friendly image designed by a regime deploying every political, economic and cultural tool to keep the occupation's status quo and deny Sahrawi existence and resistance."
Public-facing scholars like Wilson and Mary Beard will inevitably be asked for their thoughts on Hollywood films , whether they are accurate (almost never, although that doesn't need to matter) to history or to the plot of a particular text. They'll also be asked what the reception of a work says about our contemporary times and what the bits left out — like all the sex Odysseus was definitely having in full knowledge that he still had a wife waiting for him — can tell us about what makes us uncomfortable.
A lot of the pushback against Wilson's piece has been her obvious self-interest in "The Odyssey" and the extent to which it's valuable for writers to weigh in on visual adaptations. There's also the designation of Wilson's piece as a film review, when Wilson spends most of the piece engaging with the film's differences to the poem (and therefore her understanding of the story) and not the visual language or style of Nolan's work beyond it being full of "light and noise" and "jam packed with incidents."
But "The Odyssey," with its sold-out 70mm IMAX screenings , Oscar-winning filmmaker Christopher Nolan and decorated scholar Wilson are all going to be fine. Wilson ends her critique with gratitude for Nolan's making a contribution and acknowledges that, unlike the citadel at Troy, nothing here is on fire.
"Some of those who buy the book or show up in cinemas to watch Tom Holland may go on to study ancient Greek. Perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and history departments. Nolan, who studied English at University College London – where students still study The Odyssey as a first-year 'foundational text' – is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful," Wilson writes.
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