The Odyssey translator Emily Wilson savages ‘abysmal’ script for a Christopher Nolan movie

It's not every week you see a nearly three-thousand-year-old poem blow up the box office, but here we are: The Odyssey is packing out cinemas and apparently sparking actual arguments about why on earth people don't want to watch Matt Damon have a little nap. Think I'm joking? Let's get into it.

Box Office, Buzz, and Backlash

Hollywood is busy declaring that theatres are back, and frankly, the numbers don't lie. The Odyssey pulled in just under $60 million on its opening day alone, and it's now quietly sitting on a staggering $652 million worldwide as of the latest report. That's the sort of haul execs dream of when they're not busy panic-cancelling streaming projects. If you care about scores, both audiences and critics have given this ancient-Greece epic well above 90%. Not bad for a big, artsy blockbuster that's as likely to provoke think-pieces as popcorn sales.

The Odyssey stormed to $652 million worldwide within weeks of release.

Inevitably, not everyone is pleased. Even before release, certain corners of the internet (read: those 'manosphere' forums full of complaining middle-aged men) got upset about the film's diversity and its willingness to say anything critical about war or society. Who knew an eight-hundred-year-old poem could be so controversial?

Professor vs. Director

Much of the 'real' drama kicked off thanks to Christopher Nolan, who, in prepping for his adaptation, relied on some academically lauded research, especially the best-selling translation of The Odyssey by Emily Wilson, a classics professor at the University of Pennsylvania. Thanks to the film's success, Wilson's book translation is flying off the shelves everywhere. So, everyone's happy, yes? Not quite.

It turns out Wilson responded to the film herself—with a scathing review in the London Review of Books that reads like the sort of thing a lecturer hands out after lunch, stuffed with complaints about modern film and lack of 'implied sleep scenes.' She dismissed Nolan's film as essentially a big-budget fireworks display, spectacular to look at but thin where it counts. Here's Wilson, setting her rather grim tone right at the top:

Emily Wilson wrote in her review: "The Odyssey is a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth."

No stone left unthrown. Wilson has the full suite of critiques: the screeched lament that Nolan hasn't included every thread of emotional and political complexity from Homer's original, a sniffy bit about how awful the food looks, and—you really can't make this up—a complaint that there are no sex scenes, and the audience is cruelly robbed of seeing Matt Damon have a proper sleep. For a film almost three hours long, you'd have thought people might appreciate a bit less napping on camera, frankly.

The sharpest passage, the bit everyone has been quoting, comes further down, where Wilson claims the movie simply leaves out what makes the poem great:

"Nolan’s Odyssey lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbors. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

As far as academic slap-downs go, it's about as forceful as they come. What's slightly odd is Wilson herself has faced criticism for modernising her own Odyssey, making it more accessible, and yet she's unwaveringly appalled by Nolan's decision to do much the same—just in a different format. At one point, she draws attention to the fact that Nolan's managed to read the first line of her translation, and then dishes this out: she'd be ashamed to have written any part of the movie script. Textbook academic rivalry.

The Humanities Angle

Behind all the snark, Wilson does close her review with a genuine (albeit slightly reluctant) bit of gratitude. She acknowledges that the film and its wild popularity at least might keep universities from cutting classics departments, given that mass interest always leads to a few more book sales, and perhaps more importantly, renewed questions about why this ancient story still matters. She singles out Nolan's education at UCL, pointing out that The Odyssey is still on the curriculum for first-years, and expresses a bit of hope that all the attention will give the humanities a boost.

Wilson's final note in her review reads: "Perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and history departments. Nolan, who studied English at University College London – where students still study The Odyssey as a first year ‘foundational text’ – is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful."

For now, The Odyssey is showing in cinemas worldwide, and, whether you like your Greeks on the page or the big screen, they're clearly not going away any time soon.