I saw Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey last Friday at an IMAX theater about 40 minutes outside of Washington, D.C., which was the closest decent seat I could find at the last minute. Everywhere else near me was sold-out.
I’m seeing it again this week with friends. I’ll probably see it a third time in the next few weeks. I can’t remember the last time I saw a new release more than twice.
It’s that good. It may be the best movie of the decade. I’ve been waiting to publish a piece on the movie itself because there’s a lot to unspool and every time I sit down to write, what becomes clear is that I need to see it again to fully sketch out my thoughts.
(Although I did quite enjoy Justin Chang’s review for The New Yorker. Then again, every film review by Mr. Chang is worth reading. He’s an exceptional writer and critic.)
Meanwhile, you may have noticed that not everyone is impressed. The project has been controversial almost since it was announced in late-2024, overwhelmingly due to far-right backlash over just about everything we’ve come to expect from those clowns.
They’re enraged that the great Lupita Nyong’o was cast as Helen of Troy, which has been a particular focal point for Elon Musk, who seems obsessed with claiming this is an example of anti-white racism (it is not, of course).
They’re enraged that Elliot Page was cast as a Greek soldier (Sinon). Some of them are enraged over the erroneous perception he was cast as Achilles (who doesn’t appear in the film). All of them, of course, are pissed that Mr. Page, a trans man, was cast at all.
They’re enraged that the film opens with rapper Travis Scott playing the bard Phemius and reciting lines in beat to the pounding of his staff. They claim to be upset because Black people weren’t represented in Ancient Greece, which is, of course, incorrect (check out this article from MoMA as an entry point on that). They’re not a little upset that a hip-hop artist would play a famous bard, which is hilarious because, as Mr. Nolan astutely points out, rap is arguably the most analogous modern art form to ancient song.
They’re enraged that Mr. Nolan, in writing the screenplay, drew considerable inspiration from the celebrated translation of The Odyssey published by Dr. Emily Wilson in 2017. Dr. Wilson notably became the first woman to publish an English translation of the epic poem. While receiving widespread praise for her contemporary linguistic lens in presenting the tale, some detractors deemed it as “woke.”
Some of them are annoyed with what they view as the “ahistorical” presentation of Greek ships, armor, etc. This criticism, of course, has been adopted broadly by men who are enraged for the previous reasons and have latched unto this critique in a bid to frame their disgust with the film—which they hadn’t seen—as reasonable and academic.
For all these reasons, tens of thousands of men online—primarily white and overwhelmingly alt-right—have ceaselessly lambasted the film (which, again, they hadn’t yet seen) as a “woke slaughter” of a literary masterpiece that’s at the foundation of Western literature and culture.
Many of them have been calling for a boycott of the film since last year, led by the likes of Elon Musk and Matt Walsh and basically every performative far-right pundit in the national landscape.
As anticipation grew in the months preceding the film’s release—and it began to become pretty clear that a boycott wouldn’t be successful—the conversation shifted to claims that the film would be a critical and commercial flop.
When it opened in the U.S. and U.K. on July 17th, the film was met with universal critical acclaim—many reviewers calling it Mr. Nolan’s best-work-to-date—and thus, the online rage pivoted almost entirely to predictions that it would fail to recoup its massive budget (officially $250M but the film would need upwards of triple that to officially be profitable).
Well, it’s been ten days since wide release, and Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has already made $640M in the global box office.
It is officially his best opening weekend, officially his best second weekend, and it will more than likely become the fastest R-Rated film to hit a billion in box office receipts, breaking the record set by The Joker in 2019.
Nearly two weeks into its theatrical run, anecdotes continue to flood social media that folks are struggling to find screenings that aren’t sold-out.
When all is said and done, The Odyssey is likely to be Mr. Nolan’s greatest box office triumph — yes, even more than any of his Batman features. Yes, even more than Oppenheimer.
Yes, a three-hour adaptation of an ancient Greek poem published more than 2,800 years ago is set to become the crown jewel—critically and commercially—in the filmography of Christopher Nolan.
It will likely be nominated for at least ten Oscars, perhaps more, and there’s an outside chance it may even break the record for most Oscar wins (11), currently and jointly held by Ben-Hur (1959), Titanic (1997), and The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003).
The enormous success of Chris Nolan’s The Odyssey is quickly shaping up to be the greatest rebuke of alt-right grievance culture in our time. It is basically the modern pop culture equivalent of Sherman making Georgia howl.
It has been so immediate and so overwhelming and so obvious in its excellence to all observers across the political spectrum that Musk and his ilk suddenly find themselves awash in a peculiar state of cognitive dissonance, performing outrage only for themselves, yet in full knowledge that they’ve lost this fight in a landslide.
It’s also laid bare the most damning aspect of that world and what I would claim is easily the most interesting and unexpected outcome of Mr. Nolan’s masterpiece.
It is the sudden realization across our national culture that these people seemingly cannot breathe without rage flowing through them. Let me explain what I mean.
There’s nothing stopping all these whiners from making their own adaptation of The Odyssey.
Elon Musk, the wealthiest person in history, could cut a check right now for a big budget adaptation produced exactly to his liking. He could easily dump a quarter billion into such a project (or more!), and it would be little more than a drop in the bucket for him.
He could hire the director and writer and crew he wants. He could cast whomever he wants. He could market it however he wants.
He and his like-minded, fragile fanboys could set out to prove that their version of The Odyssey is aesthetically superior and more commercially successful.
But they haven’t, and they won’t. Elon Musk isn’t gonna do that.
And despite his recent claim that he plans to push out an “AI-based” adaptation of The Odyssey, I suspect that will be long forgotten by the holidays, relegated to the dustbin of his other “big ideas” that never came close to fruition.
Because it’s not really about The Odyssey for them.
None of this—not a single bit of it—is actually about their protective instincts for a 2,800-year-old epic poem and its historical context.
It’s about their insatiable craving for outrage and grievance. They are constantly starved for things to be angry about. They wake up every day begging for things in the world to piss them off. They are irrationally addicted to their own anger.
The rest of the world is quite content and busy enjoying a landmark film—widely considered a masterpiece by audiences and critics, wholesomely spurring substantial interest in the Classics (sales of English translations of The Odyssey have nearly doubled this month)—and the cult of the far-right is meanwhile seeped in useless rage with no hope of closure and massive embarrassment.
It has been a truly humiliating few weeks for Elon Musk and his followers, and it’s only going to get worse.
If I weren’t laughing so much, I would almost feel sorry for them.
