By Kaelyn Tan

I go into every Christopher Nolan movie wondering what new precedent he will set for cinema. Nolan’s brave undertaking of Homer’s classic epic, The Odyssey, is no different. Nolan’s retelling of the story was phenomenal, but not over-the-top. Even so, the characters were diluted and lacked depth.

The Odyssey is the movie of the summer, garnering widespread online attention and a historic box-office run, grossing an estimated $652 million in its first ten days of release. The film follows Odysseus (Matt Damon) as he navigates the waters and land to return home to his wife, Penelope (Anne Hathaway). He encounters monsters, witches and the dead in the years following the Trojan War. While there were some parts of the story that only Greek mythology enthusiasts could fully appreciate on first watch, Nolan masterfully tells a complex story that appeals to a general audience.

The movie particularly excelled at exploring themes of trauma, grief and war through a nonlinear structure, slowly revealing pieces of Odysseus’ complete journey. As the story unfolded, it was as if we were also experiencing the shock, depression and remorse along with Odysseus during his return home. In one scene, he travels to the border of the underworld, where he speaks with the dead souls who perished in the Trojan War. Odysseus learns harsh truths about the fallen heroes and is haunted by deep emotional grief — and the violence he perpetuated. 

In addition to their view into Odysseus’ internal world, the audience can also see the impact of the story’s events on Odysseus’ loved ones, especially Penelope. Upon Odysseus’ disappearance, Penelope is bombarded by over 100 aggressive suitors who assume Odysseus has died. She is essentially left alone to fortify the kingdom by stalling the suitors for twenty years and protecting her son Telemachus (Tom Holland) from external threats. (The suitors also planned to murder him.) Scenes between Penelope and Telemachus are mainly arguments about Telemachus’ immaturity and their approach to the aggressive suitors. 

As much as I loved the movie, most of the characters, especially Odysseus and Penelope, were two-dimensional and stiff. Matt Damon’s Odysseus is flattened into a conventional good character, rather than preserving the cunning, sometimes merciless personality that shines through in Homer’s epic. He is portrayed as a guilt-ridden man who struggles to lead his crew and make executive decisions, thereby watering down Odysseus’ original, colorful traits. Penelope’s character growth and influence were largely stunted. The movie largely neglects Penelope’s active strategic plots and only focuses on her role as Odysseus’ loyal wife at home,  as if Penelope’s sole purpose is to function as a thematic checkpoint rather than showing her as an individual. The film could have included more scenes that demonstrated Penelope’s resilience and decision-making. 

While the characters were sanitized, Nolan has successfully delivered a massive story on a massive scale to the audience, making The Odyssey the latest in a line of movies by the director that have raised expectations for the cinematic world. 

By Dakshina Lazo-Escobar

Peculiar yet surreal, the 2026 film adaptation of The Odyssey, directed by Christopher Nolan, was a surprise in its own right. By utilizing motifs like the melodic strum of the bow and the rush of a fight, Nolan manages to condense twelve thousand lines of plot into an unbelievable three-hour movie. Yet nothing could have prepared viewers for Polyphemus, aka the Cyclops (Bill Irwin).

The audience’s first glance at Polyphemus is during the first trial of The Odyssey. Following his victory in the Trojan War, Odysseus (Matt Damon) changes course to journey home, where his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and his son Telemachus (Tom Holland) await his return. However, as his ship touches the ocean and his crew sets out on their expedition home, they quickly realize that the brutalities of the war they incited are not unpunishable.

This harsh awakening arrives when they unknowingly make their way into Polyphemus’ cave, where they soon become his prey. Polyphemus is a beast. He is not crafted like a Greek god, nor is he as cute as his sheep; rather, he fully resembles an alien-like entity intentionally meant to disturb watchers. Nonetheless, his horror-like design makes him very appealing.

Before settling on a visual concept, Nolan and his team mulled over various depictions of cyclopes. Specifically, they turned their attention towards the imbalance of their facial features in other forms of media — a characteristic they desperately wanted to change. After much back and forth, the team settled on rotating his face sideways, ultimately focusing on the lopsidedness to make it uncanny. 

What makes Polyphemus such an effective character, though, is the fact that he is designed after Spanish painter Francisco Goya’s artwork Saturn Devouring His Son. Goya’s piece depicts the Roman god Saturn after a prophecy predicts that one of his children will steal the throne from him. Frightened and outraged, Saturn prompts his wife, Cybelle, to bring him every child she has, then eats them to prevent the premonition from coming true. When Polyphemus consumes one of Odysseus’ men, he crouches down into the same stance Saturn takes, echoing the painting in how he bites down on the man’s flesh.

Nolan implemented the atmospheric horror found in that artwork into the character of Polyphemus, but managed to add more. The tale bleeds into the epic, a foreboding technique which says more about the story without the need for more details. By doing so, Nolan further explores themes of time, death, destiny, and human cruelty — all aspects that are critical to The Odyssey. These messages are all tethered to Odysseus: He loses twenty years of his life out at sea, witnesses the deaths of thousands of his men, resists a forced destiny by confronting god-like trials and faces the consequences of his brutality.

Polyphemus is more than a trial. Nolan’s stylistic choices make him an unspoken prophecy. In his design of the cyclops, Nolan unfolds the future tension of The Odyssey.