Emily Wilson · An Uncomplicated Man - London Review of Books

What the report says

The London Review of Books published an essay by classicist and translator Emily Wilson assessing Christopher Nolan’s film version of Homer’s “The Odyssey,” described in the article as a $250 million action spectacle. Writing in the issue dated 13 August 2026, Wilson says the film is entertaining and accessible, with Nolan’s non-linear storytelling fitting a poem built from embedded narratives, but argues that the production offers far more visual and sonic force than emotional or narrative depth.

Wilson’s review situates the film within both Nolan’s career and the long history of adapting Homer. She notes recurring Nolan interests such as fractured time, survival, technology, rivalry, memory and male quests centred on women, but says the movie repeats his tendency toward scale over character. She contrasts the film’s explosions, shipwrecks and battle noise with what she sees as the poem’s deeper concerns: homecoming after war, power, hospitality, strangers, political authority and the costs of fame.

The essay also critiques the film’s casting and characterisation. Wilson says actors including Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins and Travis Scott are given roles that mainly support the white protagonist, while female figures drawn from Homer are underwritten despite the source material’s richer possibilities. She singles out Charlize Theron’s Calypso as lacking the anger, wit and rhetorical force of the Homeric character.

The review matters less as a box-office report than as a prominent literary response to a major screen adaptation of a foundational ancient text. Wilson’s central judgment is that Nolan understands many Homeric themes but turns them into a large-scale entertainment that, in her view, only partly engages the poem’s complexity.