“The release of The Odyssey is still an event to celebrate,” Wilson noted.
“This epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas… translations of Odyssey, including mine, are flying off the shelves… [and] perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and history departments.
“Nolan… is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful.”
But she was left largely disappointed by the three-hour epic
“I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters,” she wrote.
“But The Odyssey features his usual combination of grandiosity and superficiality… the film’s vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas – although it is very good at conveying big bangs and big giants.”
Wilson added that her teenagers had “had a good time” seeing the blockbuster at the cinema.
“It’s a family-friendly audiovisual spectacle, like an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth,” she said.
“There are more female characters than in most Nolan movies, thanks to the source material. But none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem.”
During his press tour for the film, Sir Christopher told Empire magazine, external that he used the opening line of Wilson’s translation (“Tell me about a complicated man”) as a guide for his Odysseus, played by Matt Damon.
