Movie Review: How Greek is The Odyssey?

I grew up reading stories from The Odyssey in little children’s books, so, in true Greek fashion, I went into Hollywood’s newest adaptation extremely skeptical. As a Greek, you are basically born with The Odyssey pre-memorized. Before you fully understand what a metaphor is, someone has already told you about the Cyclops, Circe, the Sirens, and Odysseus’s ten-year journey back to Ithaca.

So I was expecting to have a lot to complain about. Surprisingly, though, the movie was pretty good.

One of its biggest strengths is that it keeps most of the original story intact. Obviously, some parts of The Odyssey had to be shortened or removed. The original is huge, and the movie is already long, but for the most part, the major events and characters remain recognizable. The cinematography is also one of the strongest parts of the film. The landscapes and ocean scenes give the story the scale it needs, and even when the movie feels overly polished, it is consistently impressive to look at.

I also think there is something exciting about such a large Hollywood production being centered on a Greek epic. The Odyssey is already one of the most influential works in Western literature, but the movie has introduced the story to an even wider audience and gotten people talking about characters and myths that are thousands of years old.

Still, there were a number of changes that bothered me, especially because some of them seemed unnecessary. Some costume choices seemed out of place, including helmets resembling the horsehair-crested Corinthian style; the Cleveland Museum of Art dates one such helmet to approximately 625–550 BCE, centuries after the story’s Bronze Age setting. The movie also changes parts of the encounters with the Lotus Eaters and some of the monsters without really giving a clear reason for doing so. I understand changing or removing scenes for timing, but these changes did not seem to make the story any clearer or more effective.

The omission that bothered me most was Odysseus meeting Achilles in the Underworld. Their conversation is one of the most important moments in the epic because Achilles, who chose glory and an early death, admits that he would rather be alive. It adds much more complexity to the idea of heroism that runs throughout both The Iliad and The Odyssey. Leaving it out felt like a much bigger loss than some of the other scenes that were cut.

My biggest criticism, though, is that the movie never felt especially Greek. If you did not already know that Ithaca was a Greek island, there were moments where you might not know where the story was supposed to be taking place at all. The costumes often had a futuristic or fantasy-inspired look rather than feeling particularly connected to ancient Greece, and the overall world of the film felt more like a generic mythological setting.

That stood out to me because Greek culture is such an important part of the original story. Hospitality, family, loyalty, religion, and the importance of returning home are all central to The Odyssey. The film includes those themes, but it does not always create a strong sense of the culture behind them. I wanted Ithaca, especially, to feel more distinct and more important, considering that returning there is the entire motivation behind Odysseus’s journey.

The casting also received a huge amount of attention before the movie came out. As a Greek person, I was disappointed that a major adaptation of one of Greece’s most famous stories did not include any Greek actors in significant roles. At the same time, I think the casting controversy ended up taking up far more of the conversation around the movie than it deserved, especially considering how briefly some of the debated characters actually appear.

The movie does sometimes feel over-Hollywoodized. It is extremely polished, dramatic, and designed to be a blockbuster, which occasionally makes the story feel less ancient and strange than it should, but even with those problems, I left the movie feeling much more positive about it than I expected to.

There is something really cool about watching a story I grew up with become something millions of people are suddenly excited about. The Odyssey has survived for thousands of years because every generation finds a way to retell it, and even if this version is not exactly the one I would have made, it still proves how powerful the story is. If this movie gets even a few more people to pick up Homer, look up Ithaca, or become interested in Greek mythology, I think that is ultimately a positive.

For all my complaints, I was still happy to see The Odyssey on such a big screen, and even happier that, thousands of years later, people are still finding their way back to it.

3.5/5 stars