 | Opportunities to explore Homer’s ancient Greek tale abound: Christopher Nolan’s masterful 2026 cinematic epic The Odyssey, the intense drama The Return (2024), and renewed interest in Emily Wilson’s translation (2018). All three tell the story of the Greek hero Odysseus and his challenges coming home from the Trojan War (physical and psychological). The two movies add to and subtract from Homer’s narrative to craft cohesive movie experiences, the visual medium of film having different constraints and freedoms than written text. |
If you enjoy an expansive cinematic experience with exceptional acting, rich camerawork, and a compelling storyline, see Nolan's The Odyssey on the largest screen possible, though be forewarned: there are instances of brutal killing and graphic magical transformation (Circe’s pig-men). Emily Wilson’s introduction and translator’s note form a thematic template for many of Nolan’s creative choices. For fans of this excellent movie, they’re worth reading.
 | The Return, with Ralph Fiennes, shows Odysseus returned to Ithaca, and shamed by the war. Less of a spectacle than Nolan’s work, this psychological drama is well acted; the suitor Antinous in particular has a nuanced, complex role, and genuinely pines for Penelope (or seems to), while plotting to kill her son. There is an invented hunting scene in this movie that deftly illustrates the precarious position of Odysseus’s terrified son, Telemachus. |
The text of Homer’s The Odyssey often assumes a distant, omniscient narrator; is painfully redundant; and has a sprawling cast of characters, likely familiar to an ancient Greek audience, but creating a muddled narrative for modern readers.
I was unwilling to wade through the text this time around, despite Wilson’s highly-readable translation. The narrative's scattered quality may stem from the text being a transcription of ancient oral traditions that were fluid and likely varied from bard to bard and from city-state to city-state. Even after the story was written down, variations continued, per Wilson: “In antiquity, there were a number of legends about what happened to [Odysseus] after the poem ends.”
I was unwilling to wade through the text this time around, despite Wilson’s highly-readable translation. The narrative's scattered quality may stem from the text being a transcription of ancient oral traditions that were fluid and likely varied from bard to bard and from city-state to city-state. Even after the story was written down, variations continued, per Wilson: “In antiquity, there were a number of legends about what happened to [Odysseus] after the poem ends.”
 | I focused my reading on passages about Circe, since she's a character in my novels-in-progress. Most of her scenes are in Book 10 and are narrated by Odysseus. His story is jarringly narcissistic and self-serving: Odysseus has Circe tell him how smart and handsome he is, etc., etc. According to Odysseus, he holds a sword to the sorceress Circe’s throat, the woman who has magically transformed his men into pigs, and she says, “You must be Odysseus, the man who can adapt to anything. . . . Now sheathe your sword and come to bed with me. Through making love we may begin to trust each other more.” Even in patriarchal ancient Greece, this must have sounded like locker-room bragging. |
For the next year, Odysseus says, Circe and her servants wait on him, bathe him, anoint him with oil, then provide fine clothing and even finer food (plus endless sex with Circe herself). She frees his men and attends to their needs as well. Like many written Greek myths, the storyline is implausible if you're not the intended audience: other elite Greek men.
 | As Wilson says, The Odyssey is “the product of archaic male imaginations, questioning and defending the inequalities of male dominance within the status quo. The poem meditates on what women might be capable of [fidelity, infidelity, sorcery, murder], and the degree to which their potential can or should be suppressed.” Women’s power takes the form of “seduction, deceit, or witchcraft . . . The goddess Circe and the Sirens also have the power to trap their victims through enchantment.” However, the “most prominent liar and trickster” is Odysseus himself. |
Dominating women is a way of asserting male power within a patriarchy, whether through sexual exploits as Odysseus claims or through verbal belittling. “Unable to stand up to [his mother’s] suitors himself, Telemachus instead practices masculine self-asserting by putting down his mother. . . . Telemachus is consistent in his notion that masculine maturity means the suppression and exclusion of women and the suppression of female voices.”
 | Because paternity could never be assured (without modern DNA testing), patriarchal systems sought to control access to fertile women. Western folklore has provocative examples of young women locked in towers (Rapunzel, Ethniu). In ancient Greek culture, Wilson says, “Female fidelity is important for maintaining a husband’s sense of honor and control; it is associated with the preservation of a particular wealthy household and the perpetuation of a particular elite family line.” Odysseus’s wife Penelope exemplifies this fidelity, whereas Helen and blood-soaked Clytemnestra present contrasting tales of villainous infidelity. |
Odysseus’s grandiose escapades reflect both patriarchal privilege and the importance of immortality through glory; his tall tales can be understood in this context. Says Wilson: “Odysseus cannot resist the urge to gain kleos—the honor that comes from being the named subject of heroic legend.”
 | Though mortal women are often treated like chattel in the story, goddesses play a proactive role in aiding the hero. In Wilson’s introduction, she describes Odysseus as “a man of extraordinary cognitive, psychological, and military power, one who can win any competition, outwit any opponent, and manage, against all odds, to survive.” He is a “king and warrior who fights to gain massive wealth and assert his own masculine prowess, using deceit and violence to slaughter his enemies” both in foreign lands and his own home when he murders his wife's suitors. Yet Athena’s guidance is crucial to his success. “Only through female divine power can his patriarchal dominance over this household be regained.” |
Exploring the written text of The Odyssey underscores how skillfully the two recent movies, The Return and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, brought this story to life and gave it fresh meaning for our modern world, particularly in giving female characters independent agency. Both movies (and Wilson’s introduction) are worthy contributions to this ~3,000-year-old tale.
Read excellent fictional adaptations of The Odyssey:
Ithaca, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, The Song of Achilles
Read more about Greek gods and goddesses related to The Odyssey:
Sirens Empowered, Divine Darkness, Victory, Four Queens of Aieetes, "A Sorcerer is Born"
Ithaca, The Lost Books of the Odyssey, The Song of Achilles
Read more about Greek gods and goddesses related to The Odyssey:
Sirens Empowered, Divine Darkness, Victory, Four Queens of Aieetes, "A Sorcerer is Born"
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