Come Back Nolan, We Need You

It pains me to write this review because I generally only write positive takes on great movies or TV shows, but this film had the potential to be one of the greatest and it fell short; taking a direction it should not have been on. The journey of the Odyssey through the eyes of the incredibly overrated director Christopher Nolan. First let me say, this review in my heart is admittedly naively only for Mr. Nolan because he for whatever reason does not follow the style and thematic structure he masterfully used in Dunkirk and to a lesser extent in his Batman films or “Interstellar”. Dunkirk is not only Nolan’s greatest film but it’s the type of film sadly he seems to not want to make anymore. Perhaps the culprit was how in Dunkirk Nolan was forced into a narrower process of telling a true story. A short story of a battle and within that idea he encompassed all into what Edgar Allen Poes monumental essay calls, “the Single Effect Theory”. All the dialogue, characters, mood, music and even framing was structured to serve the theme of Dunkirk; how man’s souls rises to the occasion through spiritual honor and bravery based on human empathy. This idea of all working towards the substance of the theme and its moral intent was also missing in “Oppenheimer”, a Nolan film that ignored the suffering and impact of the atomic bombings on Japan in favor of nuance artful stylization. Thematic structure that engages could have easily made Odyssey one of the greatest films of all time but instead Nolan chose to horde it, perhaps hoping the audience made its own conclusions before it was spoon fed as Odysseus’s final stages of redemption. During the battle of Troy, Nolan expresses the anguish of a cultural shift away from respecting spiritual context and humane societal norms in the form of flashbacks and convenient dialogue, instead of showing us the torment Odysseus felt as it was happening. He gave us glimpses of Athenas desecration while he fooled us with her presence as if she and Nolan was deceiving not only Odysseus but the actors as well. The theme was not married to the acting or the storytelling as if Nolan and the characters did not believe in ancient Greek spirituality or the value of the tale. It felt as though some lines were added later as an afterthought because they had forgotten to incorporate the theme. It’s hard to say if Nolan could have helped the players better embrace the theme but I’m confident Matt Damon (Odysseus), Robert Pattinson (Antinous), Zendaya (Athena), Charlize Theron (Calypso) and Jon Bernthal (Menelaus) could of rose to the occasion because they are indeed great actors but they seemed to of downplayed their emotions to let Nolan tell the story or perhaps not to outplay Damon. Tom Holland (Telemachus), Anne Hathaway (Penelope), John Leguizamo (Eumaeus), Elliot Page (Sinon) and Lupita Nyong'o (Helen) didn’t get that memo, they instead played their roles with method, seeking out their character’s shortcomings and passions within the theme; albeit abandoned and neglected by Nolan. Perhaps the biggest disappointment was Damon, who in roles for Saving Private Ryan or Good Will Hunting exposed his inner soul for us elegantly and with due diligence helping us feel the impact of those stories. In Odyssey, he phoned it in, to portray the warrior as an emotionless hero; something that could have worked until the final scenes when he forgot it was the ultimate redemption story, one surpassing that of an individual’s in scope and importance. Despite Nolan missing the boat on the intense emotion of the present in lieu of telling a story somewhat abstractly, the Odyssey is a good movie just not a great one as it could have been. The Odyssey is a very entertaining popcorn film with lots of fun effects and grand visuals, but it could have been a societal changing timeless epic.