The Odyssey

Academy award winner (Oppenheimer, 2024) writer director Christopher Nolan’s epic blockbuster adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey, is Nolan’s largest, most challenging and among the most expensive films of his career. Co-produced with his wife Emma Thomas, Odyssey is the eleventh highest grossing film of all times.

Deviating from the traditional fantasy genre, the film combines mythology with tactile realism by depicting the actions of the gods through natural phenomena. Nolan’s distinctive introspective narrative style focuses on respect, loyalty, and trust.

Following a ten year long Trojan war, Odysseus (Matt Damon), king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous return trip home. 

The numerous mythological adversaries encountered along the way, delay his homecoming by an additional ten years. 

Due to his prolonged absence, he is presumed dead, leaving behind his wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and son Telemachus (Tom Holland). When he finally arrives to Ithaca, Odysseus has to reclaim his family and throne.

The feature brings together a superb all-star ensemble cast including Matt Damon, Penelope Cruz, Tom Holland as well as Robert Pattinson as the villain Antinous, John Leguizamo as Odysseus’ half blind servant Eumaeus, and Samantha Morton as the witch Circe.

Elevating the cinematic experience are Ellen Mirojnick’s costume designs, Ruth De Jong’s elaborate production designs and Hoyte van Hoytema’ s cinematography, which adapt visual styles and atmospheric tones through various terrains during on location filming in Morocco, Greece, Italy, Scotland, Iceland, Western Sahara, Malta as well as at the Universal Studios Lot in Los Angeles.

Odyssey is the first feature shot entirely in IMAX 70 mm cameras offering the highest resolution available today and enhancing the immersive action-packed sequences and sea storms. 

Maintaining the momentum is the extraordinary pulsating sound design by three times Oscar winning composer Ludwig Göransson who evokes Bronze Age’s materiality through the use of bronze gongs layered with synthesizers, bronze instruments, ancient lyre and aulos, flutes and vocals.  Complimenting the sound landscape is Travis Scott’s original song When I’m home.

Odyssey (R 172 minutes) is a type of epic feature rarely produced today. Its masterful creative direction and technically accomplished, modern cinematic approach is best seen on the largest possible screen for maximal enjoyment.