The Odyssey might be the most Christopher Nolan movie Christopher Nolan has ever made. It’s a big, bold, vigorous vision executed at the highest possible scope, with IMAX cameras filling every inch of the frame with that wondrous vision. And it’s adapted from nothing less than one of the foundational texts in the history of narrative. Yes, Christopher Nolan is the sort of director who can sit down one day and decide to film a version of Homer’s most famous epic poem, which is so intrinsic to the history of storytelling that its very structure has become a key template for all works to follow.

But The Odyssey is also the most James Cameron movie Christopher Nolan has ever made. Don’t worry, that’s a compliment. You get Titanic vibes from this movie, and I still mean that as a compliment. Utterly setting aside an approach to character and story that has often been described as cold, Nolan has made an unabashedly earnest, romantic and even emotional film, one whose impact accumulates over the course of 172 minutes until bursting forth into a dizzying finale that will leave you sweating, pulse pounding, as Ludwig Goransson’s score drives the chaos into a frenzy. And since we’re already talking Titanic, in The Odyssey Robert Pattinson makes the best Billy Zane since Billy Zane.

It’s too soon since the film’s release – less than one day as of this writing – to start throwing around words like “masterpiece,” or especially saying it might be Nolan’s masterpiece in particular. Not with the sort of career Nolan has had, which already received a coronation with his best picture and best director wins for Oppenheimer three years ago. But it’s not premature to say he might need to make more room on his mantle, and he’s gotten there by taking what he does best and leaning into a certain populist accessibility that should play with fans of his work as well as general punters, and might even win over the antiquity experts in the audience, who are otherwise inclined to nitpick. Which is not to say The Odyssey shies away, even for a moment, from the sober issues at its core involving our collective human legacy of violence and the cost of war on our souls.

In a review positioned to include as much praise as this one, we must be brief on synopses. Homer’s epic follows the return from the Trojan War of Odysseus (Matt Damon), king of Ithaca, who was key to the Greek victory with his infamous gambit involving soldiers hidden inside a gift horse. He’s trying to get back to his loyal wife Penelope (Anne Hathaway), who has been waiting lo these 20 years for his return, fending off literally dozens of suitors who are stinking up her grand dining hall as they wait out her decision to give up hope on her husband still being alive. This is now reaching a crisis point for them as the king and queen’s son Telemachus (Tom Holland) is coming of age, and will be heir to the throne – unless one of them steps in and snatches it from him.

But much of our story is told in flashback, following Odysseus and his band of veterans trying to get back to Ithaca, enduring all sorts of deadly distractions along the way: a cyclops, sirens, a witch who can turn them all into animals, whirlpools, unspecified other monsters, and the vengeance of the gods for violating Zeus’ law with the very stratagem that won them the war.

One of the first questions Nolan needed to answer, if not actually then in the minds of fans, is why he cast Damon in the lead role. Sure, Damon has 30 years of genuine stardom to fall back on, but instead of being the sort of British thespian you’d expect might need to lend gravitas to Odysseus, he’s known as the kid from Boston who likes making Boston movies with Ben Affleck. It’s just the first of many casting decisions that is a total win. Damon finds deep reserves of gravitas, while anchoring the general choice to use American accents throughout. Nolan’s point seems to be that these were ordinary people involved in extraordinary events, not to be played by posh Brits just waiting to be knighted.

And that is clear in Damon’s characterisation of Odysseus. Depending on how much you know about The Odyssey, you might think of Odysseus as a Mary Sue, an uncomplicated hero who unfailingly does the most courageous thing in any situation. Nothing could be further from the truth. Although Odysseus is not cruel – he makes a sound with his bow before shooting an animal he’s hunting, to give it a fighting chance – he also makes poor snap judgments and submits to rash acts, often prioritising survival over honour. In fact, he’s haunted by the very decision that made him famous, to leap out of the belly of a horse and massacre an entire city of mostly innocent people before burning it to the ground.

The events that befall Odysseus and his crew, not to mention Telemachus and Penelope and the suitors back home, are further illustrative of these shades of grey. They also amply demonstrate Nolan’s bounteous imagination. It wouldn’t be a Nolan movie without some showy set pieces, and we get that particularly in the sequence involving the cyclops, who is not only gargantuan, but his one eye is also sideways, making the menace he poses all the more discomfiting. Then there’s the terrific scene where a witch played by Samantha Morton transforms the soldier into pigs, moulding them with her very hands as they scarf down her meat stew until their cheeks burst.

There’s simply no way, within a limited amount of space, to throw your hands around everything this movie is doing and all the superlative ways it’s doing it. You can also give credit to Nolan’s cinematographer, Hoyte van Hoytema, who is capturing all this literally epic imagery. You can single out members of the supporting cast, like Himesh Patel as Odysseus’ most loyal fellow veteran, or Jon Bernthal as Menelaus, who made it back from the war with Helen of Troy in tow. Or Helen herself, played by Lupita Nyong’o in a casting choice derided by Elon Musk, which just guarantees it’s going to be good – even though the role is comparatively small.

But the best way to praise The Odyssey is to focus on its final 30 minutes, when we realise Nolan has done something he by no means always succeeds in doing: He has developed these characters and made us really care for them, and he has placed them in a battle between good and evil where even the good are compromised – which doesn’t make us love them any less.

The finale is constructed of big reveals, iconic poses and moments that make us stand up and cheer, possibly with a hint of tears in our eyes. We might really be cheering for Nolan, the writer this time, but also, for everything he’s done to bring us to this moment. You can make an epic movie with faithful recreations and fantastic sights and sounds, that is empty at its core – you know, kind of like what Ridley Scott did with Napoleon. But an epic that does all this while connecting to our basic animal selves, our core ideas of right and wrong, and our genuine love for characters we’ve known for only a short time? Well, that’s some Titanic shit right there.

 

The Odyssey opened yesterday in Australian cinemas.