Planning to See the Odyssey, Read Reviews…I have Thoughts.

Last updated on: July 28, 2026 at 12:28 am by Sherry Antonetti

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Planning to See the Odyssey, Read Reviews…I have Thoughts. 2026-07-28T00:28:50-04:00 Sherry Antonetti

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First, I’m going to see the movie. I’ve already bought tickets. Wanted to see in IMAX, so I have to wait.

Second, I’ve read multiple versions of the Odyssey multiple times because I love the Iliad and the Odyssey and I love them so much, I wrote my own Greek story which I’m in the midst of revising but was published back when ebooks were a new thing.

My E-Book On Sale!

(I later learned that the cover which I loved, spells out THE BOOK OF SPOO or some such thing because of the letters chosen by the artist).

Third, I also teach the Odyssey to my students each year, and have created a whole passle of Greek nerds in my family by introducing them to it at an early age and often. I’ve owned a Honda Odyssey. Love, love, love the story. Always have.

Finally, having read a lot of reflection on the film, I thought about the choices made in the course of creating this new addition to the epic and what they mean.

Everyone who reads and loves “The Odyssey,” holds it in their heart and sees the whole of it as applying even now. “Oh Brother Where Art Thou,” “Finding Nemo,” and “Sea of Monsters” from the Percy Jackson Series, are just some of the ways in which this story in the past thirty years has been told and retold to explore different aspects of Odysseys, of society, of marriage, of hospitality, of immortality, of time, of honor and glory. The epic itself delves into these themes and the abuses of power, of pride, and time. There are so many elements being explored, it’s hard to get to all of it except through multiple readings, multiple translations, and years of delving into the “wine dark sea” of the text. No one will “get it all right,” because there is so much in the story itself.

But it is designed to be told and retold, and to be explored and enjoyed, pondered and experienced. So I give props for revisiting this old old tale.

The wily Odysseus, the faithful Penelope, the treacherous Circe, the lovely and lonely Calypso, and of course, Helen of Troy, these are all characters that when conveyed in these various stories reveal what the author and the times and culture that surrounds the story teller, values. All the stories of Helen reveal not so much who she is, but who was writing about her and what they thought. Beauty is timeless, peoples’ understanding of how that is revealed, often time stamped. So also, Odysseus is wily, but in Nolan’s version, he’s struggling with the cost of his successes whereas in Homer, Odysseus struggles more with the cost of his failures.

Maureen Dowd wrote an excellent article in the New York Times about the absence of sex from the somehow still rated R latest version of the story. We’ve had the sex removed from the story before –for Wishbone, for Arthur, for Epic, for Percy Jackson, for Finding Nemo. However in those versions, the women were still powerful, still dangerous. What strikes me, is, when producing an adult version of the story, robbing Circe and Calypso and the Sirens of their sexual power, makes the women in the Odyssey, more domestic, less dangerous. Making Odysseus faithful in this circumstance becomes a mark not of his virtue or devotion, but of the neutered nature of the women and the men themselves. Virtue isn’t tested if desire isn’t aroused.

The 1997 version didn’t pretend sex didn’t happen.

Likewise, the gods are tangential to the story whereas in Homer’s Odyssey, they are always acting out on our hero. They struggle with not interfering because they want things to play out a certain way. Making the gods neutral or invisible likewise robs the gods of their power. Director Christopher Nolan is Circe, transforming the id-driven immortals into either beautiful backdrops or nothingness, turning what should be lions into tabby cats.. But again, the Odyssey reflects the sensibilities of the creators, and the creators in this case, do not view the divine as anything but a creation of the creators, and thus not interesting. I do not fault the director for his choices, they merely reflect the age we live in, and its sensibilities towards sex and marriage.

Penelope and Odysseus are timeless pillars of fidelity, rather than mere mortals of flesh and blood that must struggle against the cost of flesh and blood and time on connections. Penelope may be heroic in this story, but not as heroic as she must be in Homer’s version. In Homer’s version, she must forebear despite Odysseus’ dalliances. Modern sensibilities chafe at idolizing a serial adulterer who then returns to his home without having done squanto for the raising of the child as heroic, where the wife welcomes him home with open arms and an open heart who just took out 100 people she’s hosted for multiple years. It’s why Odysseus in this version must be faithful, must be chaste. Modern relationships hold only as long as both hold, and require no forgiveness because no offenses are taken.

However, that change comes with a cost on the audience. If Penelope and Odysseus were difficult before to emulate because of the values put forth, reconciled despite trials, they are near impossible now. The maintaining of their relationship over time and trials cost neither of them anything. The idea of a twenty-one year hiatus of communication and intimacy being resolved in a fortnight is as ludicrous without the assist of the Greek Goddess Athena drawing a curtain over it, as it is with her divine intervention. In the mortal realm, forgiveness is possible but difficult, it’s also real. Connection despite no presence, is not. If you want the gritty mortal relationship, there has to be the experience of the gulf, of the loss, of the work ahead that will be required of all. The neat and tidy ending of them sailing off together is akin to the elimination of his infidelity in the story; it’s a way of sidestepping the struggle created by the narrative itself.
The Greeks understood that to live is to suffer. They understood that suffering was not necessarily deserved or meted out fairly, it merely was part of being, like breathing. So being struck by the gods after surviving, having every mishap under the sun, and having consequences for hubris, for infidelity, for losing his entire crew, for taking twenty-one years, for being the catalyst for the sacking of Troy, the killing of countless people, the loss of others, should haunt him. Only the gods could go about doing what they pleased sans consequences, both in the present and ongoing. The honor, glory and immortality achieved by acts of heroism, by surviving and being better than those around one, in battle, in ruling, in craft, in any thing and all things and by being remembered by others by name, came with a price. The movie could have started with the return to explore all of that, presuming that the audience knows what came before.

We could delve into the deeper story of how a man who has done so much, could possibly return to society and connect with those around him in a meaningful fashion, and that would be a wondrous epic story to experience.

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