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Homer’s The Odyssey first engaged Christopher Nolan when he was attached to direct Troy, 20-odd years ago, and he’s been stealth-adapting Western literature’s foundational text ever since. Interstellar puts a time-bending spin on the story of a man trying to make it home; Inception, beyond its mille-feuille of dreamscapes, is about trauma and homecoming; and The Dark Knight Rises sends Batman into the underworld to find his way home. Dunkirk… well, you get the point.
So maybe The Odyssey has been the British filmmaker’s real odyssey all along. It’s a movie he could only make at this point in his career, with the full array of tools and treasure at his disposal. It may or may not be his best film – a lot of Greek island dust needs to settle before that debate kicks off – but it’s definitely Nolan at his most formidable. The ending, one of his very best, is even stronger than that of its main rivals for the crown, Inception and The Dark Knight. And who else would even try to bring this madly ambitious vision to the screen? Least of all entirely in 70mm IMAX, right down to the quiet bits. Albeit, there’s about two of those.
The thunderous near-three-hours of storm-tossed seas, clashing steel, vengeful dei ex machina, awe-inspiring monsters, and Oscar-bound A-listers takes unpacking – and maybe a motion sickness tablet. Nolan and his cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema pat a seat aboard Odysseus’s (a never-better Matt Damon) ill-fated longboat and invite you to follow the Ithacan monarch and his men into the maelstrom as he tries to return to his wife Penelope and the son he’s never met (Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland) and gets lost – geographically and spiritually – along the way. Charlize Theron’s conflicted temptress Calypso, the terrifying but oddly vulnerable cyclops Polyphemus, giant people-smashing Laestrygonians, and a host of other perils stand in his way. Back in his old palace, machiavellian suitors Antinous (Robert Pattinson, fabulously oily) and Polybus (Corey Hawkins) bide their time in their quest to woo Penelope, with help from Mia Goth’s duplicitous lady-in-waiting.
This is Christopher Nolan at his most formidable
Alongside Oppenheimer, The Odyssey is Nolan’s finest work as a solo screenwriter. It’s an epic weaned on DeMille, Lean and Harryhausen, but the screenplay finds detail and nuance in the intimate moments too. Alongside Odysseus, the female characters are the standouts, from Lupita Nyong’o’s twin roles as a broken Helen (of ‘of Troy’ fame) and her embittered sister Clytemnestra, to Hathaway’s reined-in but wrathful Penelope and Zendaya’s ethereal, sorrowful Athena. Best of all is sorceress Circe, played by an on-fire Samantha Morton, who should probably start writing an acceptance speech or two now.
Excitingly, The Odyssey gives us more than a glimpse of what a Nolan horror film might look like. One tactile descent into body horror goes full HP Lovecraft. Elsewhere, it evokes Vietnam War homecoming movies and Tarkovsky at his most hypnotic. Odysseus and his men carry deep trauma from the war. Home will only come after healing. For many, it won’t come at all.
So, yes, there’s loads here and a second viewing will bring some of the themes and textures into sharper relief. Appreciation will only grow for Ludwig Göransson’s extraordinary expressionist score, the apocalyptic glow of van Hoytema’s nocturnal lighting, and Ellen Mirojnick’s opulent costumes, of which the blackened bronze armour of Ancient Greece’s dark knight, Agamemnon (Benny Safdie), is a hulking highlight.
And the IMAX? It’s not especially helpful advice when most screenings sold out a year ago, but this is the format to see it in. Nolan often locates Odysseus and his beleaguered band on oceans that stretch out beyond the peripheral vision. In standard 70mm, the voyage is breathtaking; in IMAX, you’re tasting the salt water. Even among all the truck flips, atomic explosions and rotating corridors of his back catalogue, this film is the apogee of Nolan’s ‘do it in camera’ ethos, and the sense that this was a shoot with no comfort zone pervades every frame. Steven Soderbergh recently wondered how no one died making Mad Max: Fury Road. Watching The Odyssey, you sometimes wonder how anyone survived. They did, and the results are mythical.
In cinemas worldwide Fri Jul 17.