A classicist’s verdict on Nolan’s Odyssey: a soulful hero flatters our times as women and nuance pushed overboard

Peter Bradshaw’s five star review

It would be easy to think that the Odyssey, Homer’s epic poem composed over 2,500 years ago, is all about Odysseus. It’s called the Odyssey, after all. It opens with the invocation to the Muse, “Tell me about a complicated man” – pulling no punches about the poem’s theme. This is, on the surface of things, an epic about a man coming home, a return voyage that spans fluorescent fantasy worlds and yawns across 10 years in the wake of the fall of Troy; a one-hero clash with monsters and princesses, giants and whirlpools, the fight to reclaim his place as king of Ithaca, and as the hero of an epic of his own.

But the point about an epic is that it also contains multitudes. There is much that is epic about Christopher Nolan’s latest film. For those familiar with Nolan’s work, that hardly comes as a surprise. It’s a long watch, coming in at just under three hours. It reckons with the breadth of the Odyssean legend, from the sack of Troy all the way to Odysseus’s return, and seamlessly juggles the epic’s multiple timelines and flashbacks. And while the jaw-dropping cinematic effects of a feature film shot with Imax cameras might seem entirely modern, the way Nolan captures the smashing of a ship’s prow into the waves or the crunch of bones in the Cyclops’ jaws have their roots in the dynamic visuality of Homer’s poetry – what ancient commentators called enargeia, the epic’s ability to bring the world to life before your eyes.