TO REIMAGINE an epic as extensive as Homer’s Odyssey, one would require more than mere three hours to deal with its vast themes, plot, and all the nuances of the ancient mythology. Thus, one may call that Nolan’s vision of the tale was bound to fail from the onset, in a sense that it could never be true to the text; and maybe the Interstellar director knew that as well as his adaptation is not a mere adaptation of Homer’s ancient epic. It is a version retold through the director’s lens, or what I would call an interpretation, rather than adaptation, of the epic.
To encounter Nolan’s vast vision, it becomes just as impossible to evaluate and analyse all its literary themes and cinematic prowess here. Thus, this analysis will focus on Nolan as an auteur and how his style complements Homer’s Odyssey. It will also delve deeper into how The Odyssey (2026) fits in his larger oeuvre, particularly focusing on its thematic similarities with Oppenheimer (2023).
At this point, one cannot expect a straight-forward narrative structure from Christopher Nolan. Even when reimagining the ancient epic as vast as Odyssey, the auteur lets its vision speak through the screen as the story is not told in a linear way. While you can find similarities from his past works in the 2026 epic, Nolan takes it one step further. The kind of story he wants to tell can’t be told chronologically, especially when he is telling the story of the return of a king simultaneously with the story of son learning about his father and a kingdom forgetting his gods.
Unlike Homer, Nolan's tale is not just about the adventures of Odysseus (Matt Damon). It is about him realizing how he has broken the sacred law of the land. It is about his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) maturing as his successor. And most importantly, it is about the kingdom of Ithaca forgetting its gods.
Nolan has had so much experience in practicing this non-linear narrative style that it is a masterfully interwoven in his latest film. Although, his signature style can sometimes become so overbearing that it becomes just a self-indulgent tale, overriding the plot of the film (looking at you, Tenet), in The Odyssey, Nolan strikes the perfect balance in telling different narratives simultaneously.
The most crucial part of of The Odyssey is Odysseus’s return home, but he can only return if he remembers the past. The same past he is trying to forget because at the core he is war veteran riddled with trauma. What Nolan’s Odysseus is witnessing are symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), leading him to eventually take solace in lotus flowers and calypso to literally forget his pains.
On the other hand, his son Telemachus is on a different journey into manhood. He is on the quest to find his father and learn more about him. All he has heard and known about Odysseus is from his mother, suitors, the Bard’s tales, the unreliable tales of beggars, and finally Menelaus, who served right by his father’s side. That last encounter also helped him realize that merely learning about his father is not enough, he has to fulfill his responsibilities as the Prince of Ithaca as well.
Another theme that is masterfully woven in the narrative is the fall of Ithaca, which, as Odysseus believes, was set forth from the fall of Troy. The former's fall is more metaphorical than Troy's literal one, as the Zeus's law is leaving the King-less island
All these narratives— Ithaca forgetting his King and Gods, Telemachus learning about his father, and King Odysseus remembering his home, family and Gods— are running parallelly. It is interwoven into each other seamlessly, as evident from the transitions between the two narratives. As Telemachus learns a new detail about his father, we cut to his father, Odysseus stripped away of his glory and titles. And as the hero of the Trojan war remembers a new detail about his family, we cut away to his family remembering the lost King again.
However, Odysseus is not only remembering his family. He is also riddled with the same traumatic vision, which he is trying to forget in the forst place. The same shot of him on a staircase at Troy is revisited again and again but he hasn’t remembered it fully, or rather he doesn’t want to confront it yet. In this context, him finally narrating the events of Troy to his wife becomes more significant as it is an expression of a man remembering his trauma, putting it into words and embracing his past, shown on screen with the literal embrace of Athena (Zendaya).
How do you make an ancient epic with mythical witches, gods, beasts, and larger-than-life kings more grounded in reality for the modern audience? Christopher Nolan’s retelling of the three-thousand-year-old epic deals with this question in a creative way. He deviates from the original text quite a lot and changes crucial plot points to fit the narrative and themes he wants to explore. That’s why it feels more like an interpretation of Homer’s epic rather than adaptation.
This is evident in his retelling of the great "trick" to end the war. The Trojan horse is often imagined in all its glory. The trick that turned the tide for Greeks and ended the 10-year war. That’s how the film starts too, as the Bard (Travis Scott) narrates, “A face. A fleet. A war. A man. A thought. A trick. A trick to break the walls of Troy.”
However, it is immediately undercut by Queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway), because for her the “great trick” and stories are not enough to bring her love Odysseus back to Ithaca. That is the pain behind the great trick and that is the undercurrent which makes the larger-than-life “glory” of the Trojan hero Odysseus more grounded. In Nolan’s reimagination, the trick is not as glorious as it is made out to be. It is the fall of Troy, which came at a high cost of innocent human lives and defiance of gods, setting off the events that will also lead to the desecration of Ithaca.
Another thing that makes Homer's epic larger than life are beasts and gods. Although, mythic creatures appear in Nolan's Odyssey, they act as the manifestation of Odysseus’s Trauma. Circe, the witch, tells Odysseus what he has already witnessed in Troy, that his men are pigs. Polyphemus, Poseidon’s son, curse the greek crew to remind them the cost of defying gods. The visions at underworld act as Odysseues's regrets and guilt of not honoring his fallen mates. Whether these are real events in the story or they are imagined by a man living with trauma, that can also be argued, but they play an important role in Odysseus's journey back home, which must be rebuilt with right code of conduct (Zeus's law).
Further rejecting the grand characters, Nolan, doesn't show any gods in The Odyssey either. The only god in the film, Athena, is again the manifestation of Odysseus's guilt, as revealed near the climax, when Odysseus himself narrates the events of the Trojan war and how he broke everything that is sacred. In other words, he believes he has set a chain reaction that may one day end the world.
In The Odyssey, the concept of Zeus’s Law is most important. It is the morality code that binds the society. It dictates its followers to treat every guest as sacred as it may be a God in disguise, placing hospitality at the core of ancient Greeks. Breaking this hospitality code to win the Trojan war and defying gods was Odysseus’s biggest fall, as he confesses, “To burn the walls of Troy, was to burn the world entire.”
The same theme is seen in the Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer (2023). Just like the 20th century physicist, Odysseus sees his great “trick” to end the war as a deception that sets of the downfall of the society— a chain reaction— that upsets the god and sets off the downfall of his society.
After breaking Zeus’s law, Odysseus himself is the victim of it. Whenever he visits a new island, his crewmates are the guests who should be treted with kindness under Zeus's law, yet, they are not given the hospitality. They faced the same fate as Trojan, the consequences of the chain reaction that he had started. That is where The Odyssey goes one step further than Oppenheimer. The creator of atomic bomb doesn't have to face the same fate as his creation's victims continuously for the next decade. That is why The Odyssey is a unique film following Oppenheimer as the trials faced by Odysseues become important in his path to process his trauma. Further, his journey back home also puts the fears of Oppenheimer in perspective as both the heroes of war are riddled with their “masterful” tactic that ended the great conflict of their time.
Some may say that The Odyssey doesn’t tell or explore anything new that Oppenheimer hasn’t achieved. However, the scale, the trials, the conclusion, and the hopeful message in the end is significantly different. While both Oppenheimer and The Odyssey end with a harrowing vision — the vision of the entire world burning in former and the sight of burning horse in the latter—the 2026 film gives a message that civilization will rise again as noted by Queen Penelope. However, Odysseus sums it up in his response, saying that the new dawn will break on the darkened world and their mistakes will be forgotten and repeated till eternity, just like Oppenheimer repeated it to end the World War II, but new dawn will break again again, bringing a semblance of hope in that harrowing vision.
In a way, Nolan's act of telling the ancient myth after a modern war story is itself a hopeful message. 3000 years ago, King Odysseus of Ithaca, who broke everything that is sacred, believed he has set forth the destruction of the world, yet, we lived on. And in 20th century, J. Robert Oppenheimer feared he had begun the chain reaction that may end the world, and yet, we live on.
Suggested Reading:
Subscribe to our channels on YouTube and WhatsApp
Download our app on Play Store
