Friday essay: I’ve been reading The Odyssey my whole life. Nolan’s film version is exhilarating – but not perfect

Christopher Nolan has directed a major film adaptation of Homer's The Odyssey, starring Matt Damon as Odysseus. The Conversation reports the project carries a budget of two hundred fifty million dollars and was shot entirely in IMAX format, representing the largest production investment ever made in bringing this ancient epic to the screen. The film's approach draws inspiration from Emily Wilson's contemporary verse translation, and departs significantly from earlier adaptations—eschewing the artificial sets of decades past in favor of a hyperreal Bronze Age universe. According to a new essay in The Conversation by a University of Technology Sydney professor who's spent decades reading the text, this represents a major creative risk: whether Nolan's substantial resources can finally do justice to the classical epic's narrative scope.

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