The best 'Odyssey' movie is not Christopher Nolan's

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has come and gone and, in keeping with our troubled times, it was successful in part because it banished sex and romance from Homer's story. Why is no one interested in sex or romance anymore? An article in The Atlantic asked recently: "The Great Romance Slump: Why are so few young people finding love?" Well, they certainly wouldn't have found it in this movie. I wanted to know what Calypso, Circe, Nausicaa, Penelope and the other women in the Odyssey really thought of Odysseus. What did they see in him? Was he indeed a complicated man? Was he good in bed? Did women find him appealing? Now that would have been more interesting than Nolan's movie.

No, the best Odyssey movie is the one above: Ulysses (1954), starring Kirk Douglas and Silvia Mangano, which is sexy and suggestive. With a running time of 117 minutes, it seems to have been enough time to cover the whole story. The film's cleverest innovation is to have Mangano play both Circe and Penelope (she also voiced the Sirens) - seduction and fidelity in the same woman. Now, that is a great idea! Unfortunately, Calypso is "disappeared," although we could say that she was merged into the Circe character, and I suppose I can't have everything, and the film does include Nausicaa after all. Here's another smoldering pic of Mangano:

When they made the film, Douglas was 37; Mangano was 30. Sadly, she was a heavy smoker and she was dead from lung cancer at 66. Kirk Douglas lived to be 103. Ulysses outlived his women.

As for Nolan's Odyssey, when it opened, a lively debate ensued in the media after Classics professor Emily Wilson, whose translation Nolan relied on, made these choice comments in the London Review of Books:

(The film) has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours...

The writing is abysmal... None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible."

My bold - because I agree with her: this is the Hero's Journey of 2026, when Odysseus is in therapy with Calypso for his PTSD. Later the professor walked back some of her criticisms, especially the casting decisions, but I think she was just trying to mend fences. Guardian columnist Zoe Williams asked: "Why has Christopher Nolan got rid of all the sex in The Odyssey?" Why is there "zero sexual chemistry between Odysseus and Circe"? I would add: and why is Nausicaa removed from the film? Why do we get these women instead, obviously magically transported from some Marvel movie?

I'm sorry, that just looks soooo Americana 2026. The psychology of a hero broken by PTSD who must return to his faithful wife is a box office smash, prompting my question: do audiences want a vulnerable male protagonist whom they can pamper or empathize with? Do women want men like this? Are such men indeed "complicated"? In this day and age, I would think casual sex and romance and - just possibly love - might have healed all of that. No wonder there is a fertility problem.

Then there was Guardian music columnist Tom Service who didn't like the score and who thought the film "was an epic bore. If you want Greek myths brought to life, try the thrill of opera!" I think he's on to something: at least operatic passions are "out there" instead of being repressed. Passion, not PTSD!

Let's mention a few other Odyssey movies.... In 2024, Uberto Pasolini's The Return, starring Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, focused on just the final stage when Odysseus returns to Ithaca and kills everybody. Relatively faithful renditions like this strike me as old fashioned, when innovations in the form and content would be more interesting. It got some good reviews but didn't fare well with the public. Too much angst, not enough romance.

Going back to the Sixties, a different route was taken by "Odissea" (1968), an Italian TV mini-series by director Franco Rossi, with Mario Bava and Piero Schivazappa, produced by Dino De Laurentiis, and starring Bekim Fehmiu and Irene Pappas (who was at least Greek). It has 8 episodes and runs 446 minutes and is generally regarded as a faithful rendition. I haven't watched it.

Then there was Andrei Konchalovsky's 1997 TV miniseries The Odyssey, a two-part adaptation running 176 minutes in total, starring Armand Assante (below), Greta Scacchi and Isabella Rossellini. It was generally well received but, like Nolan's film, it's strong on action and visual effects and not much else.

What can modern audiences really get out of this ancient story? Do they really just want a Marvel movie, not a meditation on time and memory? I guess so. Maybe Nolan is right about what audiences can stand. I will finish by saying how much I preferred seeing The Simpsons give it a go. Here are the Sirens... Now, that's my Odyssey.