The Odyssey

THE ODYSSEY
Writer & Director ~ Christopher Nolan
2026, United Kingdom-United States-Canada-New Zealand-Iceland
Stars ~ Matt DamonTom HollandAnne Hathaway

Judging from the huge amount of social media discourse, Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ‘The Odyssey’ is like ‘Star Wars’ or the Marvel Universe for Greek mythology fanboys. That is: there’s a huge backlash for not being what they want, or not adhering to the granular detail, or, etc. Emily Wilson has emerged as a chief critic   herself, her contemporary translation of Homer being a key source for Nolan and widely recommended but was itself criticised. Allow me to clarify my reading by my objections to Wilson’s review. She writes:

“It 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. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.”

Which is the opposite of my personal reaction – in fact, I was surprised at its depth and evident layers whilst still delivering the big blockbuster set-pieces that Wilson apparently despises, that I expected it to be. While my personal taste dictates that I was happy it was so much a monster and horror film, it was the character nuances that stuck in the memory. The character list is huge and even if there is a sense of “oh, don’t I recognise that face?”, most get enough credence and grace notes for fleshing out and making their point. It was obviously political, about imperialism and ransacking other cultures: all that talk of “the sea people” and the protagonists not realising that they themselves are the threat, until they get to the giant Laistrygonians who barely let them get inland. The psychological, emotional, political and ethical questioning seemed evident as an ancient text used to reflect modern and timeless concerns: I was convinced it had enough to say about the toxic masculinity of men going to war, committing war crimes, PTSD, women left to take the burden back home, etc.; an anti-war film in the guise of fantasy epic.

What does strike me is that Nolan’s style of shuffling of plot and exposition makes this less episodic than anticipated (thinking of Harryhausen showcases), allowing for those themes to dictate much narrative flow.  In this way, the infiltration of Troy at first seems heroic, clever, later revealed as a horror. Any adaption is going to deviate and translate and condense, etc.

From the start with the Trojan Horse buried in the beach, it is always visually spectacular. I have seen social media threads using clips of Harryhausen’s work to disparage Nolan’s adaptation, saying it’s not as good, etc (No: it’s just different). And then you hear that the Cyclops was a 60-foot puppet and that they used moulding clay and animatronics, that the giants were achieved using different sized people and false perspective, etc., and all that is impressive also, and satisfying that it was hand-made in key monster elements as well as digital.  

I have seen many reactions saying that it does nothing for the women, but for me, it was the women and their performances that I remembered just as much as the Trojan Horse or Cyclops.  And how centred on women this is: they all have agency, not one fully crushed by patriarchy despite the culture. That is: it is Penelope letting her composure slip and snapping at her son Telemachus (who just wants to be a big boy like daddy) that startles; Lupita Nyong’o’s rage-and-tears face; and especially Samantha Norton’s Circe screaming her outrage and distrust of all men (“Back to your disguises!”) that is just as visceral and unnerving as the Cyclops. Even Charlize Theron as Calypso and Zendaya as Athena have fleeting but important images to portray (addiction, conscience). If Calypso is dreamy nurse, she is also addiction beach-dream, but it is she that lets him go only when he decides to face up and kick his lotus flower habit. Wilson writes that “Nolan’s Penelope has no dreams”, overlooking her allotted dream sequence, or the feminine fortitude in holding out against an army of boorish suitors for years. It is hard to take Wilson’s argument as a whole when there are these oversights that make it read as if she is just cherry-picking and willfully ignoring.

It seemed to me luminous with the frightful rage of women having to deal with the repercussions of men and their wars and battle-posturing. It is surely an interpretation that does the women justice, especially as this is the tale of one man’s returning home. …And, side-note: if you employ Mia Goth as a servant, you should expect trouble.

Then there’s the diversity of cast: firstly, historian Mary Beard  schools anyone thinking anything but an all-white cast would be historically inaccurate. I object to Wilson’s reading that it denies the diverse cast its credit when she writes:

“Most of the non-white actors – Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott – play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.”

Which is disrespectful, reductive and disingenuous at the very least and a little too broad at worse. For example, it is surely Himash Patel’s eyes exuding the distrust and betrayal he feels that acts as a constant reminder of Odysseus’s hubris and folly, that his reputation maybe just myth.

There’s a very modern awareness colouring characters: Odysseus’s PTSD; Circe as a damaged survivor of sexual abuse; the egotism of a “Hero” defying the Gods; the committing of War Crimes. Unreliable narrator, tinnitus with the Sirens, starvation and abuse with Circe, addiction with lotus flowers, hallucinations of Hades etc. There is so much to translate and unpack that you may feel instantly out of your depth if you’re not a Greek scholar or familiar with all the characters. Social Media has so much informed discussion as to the nuance of the individuals, down to giving Polyphemus the Cyclops his due, that the whole only impresses upon reflection in its pursuit of nuance and multiple perspectives. Even so, if you do know it, you might be prone to feeling shortchanged.

Perhaps the pacing takes a while to focus, getting by on spectacle until Odysseus sets out. Perhaps you feel the omission of the text’s sex robs the tale of earthiness, humanity and character. But as an adaptation, there seems wisdom in fleeting over Odysseus’ seven years with Calypso, or his year as Circe’s lover, for the sake of film brevity. If you are invested in these myths, you may feel shortchanged – Athena gets short shrift and Zendaya’s casting may seem bland – but far more problematic is Calypso saying stay here one minute and now you’re ready to go the next, or the fact that this anti-war treatise ends on the thrill of a big action set piece slaughter. But let’s argue that this time Odysseus is killing the enemy within, cauterising the toxic masculinity problem having learnt his lesson and passing on the crown.

There’s so much to absorb, to enjoy, to annoy, to criticise that Nolan’s achievement has marked the zeitgeist surely as much as OppenBarbie-Barbenheimer. Genre-spanning, continuing Nolan’s exploration of guilt-ridden men, epic, dour, a brilliant achievement whose cinematic and cultural size, liberties and fun mean indifference is apparently inadequate as an option.

2023 Film Round-Up: Horror

 And so to horror.

Part 1 had the dramas

Part 2 had the animation, franchises & action

There were some great female-centred treats.

Kane Senes and Hannah Barlow’s ‘Sissy’ is for the bullied girls with a secret psycho side, although the gag being that the kills are more from her clutziness and cognitive dissonance. With an almost sit-com brightness and lightness, ‘Sissy’ allows the runt a little revenge fantasy. The twist is all her malevolence and psychopathy are hidden behind the surface veneer smile and empowerment of the “influencer” trend. ‘Eighth Grade’ goes slasher, sort of. It fails to address the race issue that is visible (they’re white; Sissy is black) but its play with dark humour and nastiness make this an enjoyable horror farce. It’s a dark humoured bubblegum horror with a fine central performance for a character who found solace and identity in being an online persona.

Social Media drama and horror has shown a distinct interest in exploring female identity and individuality. ‘Eighth Grade’ or even ‘We’re All Going to the World’s Fair’ posit that the kids are wise to the social media world. ‘Influencer’ plays with how vulnerable it makes us when all our information is out there for any scam artist to manipulate. It’s one woman visiting vengeance on all that is fake and enviable on the flashes of someone’s else’s idealised life glimpsed from social media. 

Mimi Cave’s ‘Fresh’ is probably what you thought ‘A Wounded Fawn’ was going to be, and it even goes psychedelic for a moment with the (late) credits going all Joe Meek. It ended up being more fun than odd by comparison, sported fine performances and impressive set design. Ladies! Beware When Dating! is the premise, but the modern move has been to give our protagonists credibility and resilience and simply more shading to the Final Girls (for the most part) so these tales are more convincing.

 

But Franck Khalfoun’s ‘Night of the Hunted’ proves problematic: as soon our adulteress protagonist says that her only problem is men telling her what her problem is, we know that she’s going to be all Final Girl. However, what the film then proceeds to do is to pin her down under threat of death so that one guy can mansplain endlessly over a walky-talky at her. There’s just the sense that the film thinks that she is somehow, in some way, deserving. And that’s easily dismissible. There’s just something not to trust.

 

And I feel something a little unpersuaded towards the otherwise fun and very popular ‘Talk to Me’. Danny and Michael Philippou certainly hit on a franchise here, with a fairly fresh premise – kids get together to party on being possessed instead of drink’n’drugs – but a certain waving away of detail and plausible repercussion, and a lack of self-awareness from the film itself about its protagonists self-awareless means that, for this viewer, it was less convincing and more superficial than expected. Instant classic horror film but more superficial than it thinks, as it doesn’t really engage with the repercussions of its premise (the grief involved; the self-destructive nature of teenage nihilism).

·         Back to the ladies:

As much as I enjoyed the alien attack of Brian Duffield ‘No One Will Save You’, I remained similarly unpersuaded by the deliberately tricky-ambiguous ending (I am sure I’ll write more on that), firmly putting this in the same box as Half Satisfying Alien Abduction films. One woman’s persecution complex and trauma through sci-fi allegory? But the wordlessness, the stylisation and the primal fear of thingies out to get you were thoroughly enjoyable.

 

There is also an issue with the otherwise fine ‘It Lives Inside’ by Bushal Dutta. Yes, it’s tropey, but with a little Hindi twist and a decent lead character conflicted between her heritage and forging her own identity, there’s enough to keep this fresh. But mostly, an endearing practical monster makes up for a lot. The issue: more alarming is the apparent conclusion that, although the malevolence is imported from the old world, if you don’t absorb and follow it, swallow it down and keep feeding it, it will destroy all your loved ones.

 

 

Although quite popular, William Brent Bell’s ‘Orphan: First Kill’ had an entertaining opening but ended up quite average. Well, the accuracy of the title can be debated, but here we are turning “Esther” into a horror celebrity. Isabelle Fuhrman is good, but the cat is out of the bag – but another twist livens up an otherwise average-if-slick expansion to the original film. Almost bonkers enough; not quite nasty or manipulative enough.

Similarly, Gerard Johnstone’s ‘M3GAN’ got good grades and shrugs by being not fully redundant. Fun enough killer robot film that never exceeds its tropes except as a fairly solid satire on our dependence on technology. Otherwise, it’s the usual American anxieties over career-outdoing-parental-duties and learning-what’s-important. It’s the kind of plot where huge working robot protypes are kept in the spare room. M3GAN herself (Amie Donald) is pretty well-realised and fun, even breaking into song for it’s primary user (surely companies would pay handsomely for a M3GAN to promote a track) and, inexplicably, breaking into dance for its victims. And apparently killbots like to do the herky-jerky spiderwalk thing when they gain homicidal sentience. But overall its shallow if entertaining and flirts enough with satire and camp to be forgiven for not being more. As momentarily enjoyable as it is, there is the feeling of "This'll Do" and not quite being as good as it could be.

 

Ti West’s ‘Pearl’, on the other hand, only went to shine Technicolour brighter on its predecessor ‘X’. A Gothic fever dream of a psycho Southern Belle only wanting to break out into song. This made Mia Goth a true horror icon, especially after the double-whammy that went before. Richly saturated in Sunshine Perversity, it reminded of films like Robert Mulligan’s ‘The Other’ and ‘The Reflecting Skin’ where the purple prose of sun-kissed visuals and melodrama barely hid the properly unhinged.

 

Goth only went on to prove her credentials and have a great time with ‘Infinity Pool’, Brandon Cronenberg’s follow-up to the mighty shocker ‘Possessor’. Slick, full of moral dilemmas and brimming with ideas, body-horror, class and colonial commentary, and canny casting in Alexander Skarsgård. As earnest an outpouring of writer’s block horror as ‘The Shining’.

 

Ali Abassi’s ‘The Holy Spider’ disturbed not only for it’s Based On A True inspiration, but for the way it took that only as the starting point for how cultural misogyny inspires fanatical murder and cultivates an approving society. There may be rough edges, but Abbasi’s film was full of righteous rage and horror. Certainly, that last scene disturbed me no end, in what it meant for that character and said about society at large.

Saïd Belktibia’s ‘Hood Witch’ also confronted outdated conceptions of women and how that plays still in the modern era. From the crash-course in witch hunts and modern belief in witchcraft that opens, it is obvious that this is a film that’s fully awake and that there will be no slow burn here. Indeed, the whole opening with our protagonist going through customs with her son is a gripper, showing that we are in for serious business (although the issue of prison is sidestepped). Indeed, Golshifteh Farahani is nothing less than compelling and fiery as a woman exploiting people’s belief in witchcraft on her estate as she dips in an out of her ongoing feud with her estranged husband. It soon becomes apparent that her son is everything that’s at stake, physically, emotionally and spiritually as the story launches into the witch hunting and becomes a chase narrative. Running at a unshakable pace, there’s nothing supernatural here, just a kitchen sink thriller with streaks of commentary about the role of women, the consequences of charlatanism and the bloodthirstiness of faith, whether a witch-hunt or a self-flagellation.

 

John Rosman’s ‘New Life’ was not quite what you might think initially, this impressive debut has two excellent lead performances that effortlessly guide through the myriad genres to discuss the issue of failing bodies. Rarely do we see the subject touched with such focus in this way in genre. There's character drama, chase thriller, horror, sci-fi - a heady mix. It's the stuff that inspires body-horror (indeed, the film says this very thing), but the empathy and humanity that guides this right to the end is quite unique.

 

All these had great female performances, but Lily Sullivan more than held her own as the only face on screen in Matt Vesely’s ‘Monolith’. Although conveyed only through telephone calls to a journalist seemingly willing to compromise herself when desperate, the mystery is riveting. Her investigation of sinister “bricks” is bizarre enough material to be gripping. Is she falling for a conspiracy or mass-delusion? Like 'Void of Night' or 'Pontypool' for example, a film that demonstrates that spoken-word genre storytelling can still work as a dominating factor is cinema. Down-the-rabbit-hole horror with an excellent Lily Tyler where all the clues do add up, there’s a little class commentary, lots of creepiness and a conclusion that, even if it goes in the direction you anticipated, still offers a few surprises to satisfy.

Samuel Bodin’s ‘Cobweb’ was above average studio fare, containing enough feints and genre-play to make horror fans laugh with recognition (oh, home invasion masks now?). The FrightFest audience also chuckled away at the scenery-chewing of Caplin and Starr as the parents who evidently neighbour ‘The People Under the Stairs’. Suburban Gothic, cartoonish crazy parents. something in the walls, threatened kids, some flecks of nastiness. Thoroughly entertaining. Cannier than you might expect with a genuine underlay of fairy-tale nastiness.

Barnaby Clay’s ‘The Seeding’ offered the Unrelenting Serious side of horror. A man finds himself in a massive hole in the ground with a reticent woman and savage boys above and no way out. Scott Haze, who essentially has to carry the film, is excellent. It's a bad title that gains credence when you know what it refers to. It's a Descent Into Hell narrative strung out on mystery and a few shocks as Haze goes from hints of entitlement to scraps of what he used to be, never quite knowing that he's fated as soon as he offered help to a child seemingly lost in the wild. The slow burn keeps up the disquiet, but it's a film of a stunning rock-face that never stops being awe-inspiring.

Although the film tries to hold its cards close to its chest, if you do guess what's happening, the inevitability is still unsettling. The boys are allowed to roam free and do and get away from anything, to indulge in predatory and sadistic play, and any dissenters will not be tolerated (they're a bit 'Mad Max' delinquents). Women are baby-machines that are the ones that tragically uphold these traditions. Again, perversion of gender roles and homemade family traditions/religions make families the most dangerous places. The film offers no more than an extreme version of somewhat conservative norms (women the homemakers while men go play). Accusations of misogyny don't quite hold water because this is the very core of the film's horror.  Ignorance itself is the main source of this horror.

 

 

But Demián Rugna’s ‘When Evil Lurks’ showed again – after his wonderful ‘Terrified’ – that horror fun never seemed so shocking and serious. Excellent world-building – apocalyptic possession-virus – and a willingness to Go There and a number of excellent set pieces showed again that Rugna has a hold on horror tropes that was raw, sure, sly and committed. …Kids and dogs, eh?

 

·         Some low budget gems.

 

Rebekeh McKendry’s ‘Glorious’ is one of those low-budget horror films that goes where other genres don’t care about. Set almost entirely in a bathroom, it’s one man against existential horror for cosmic comeuppance. It’s the kind of grubby roadside bathroom that you think you will pick up some tragic disease just by looking at it, but Rebekah McKendry wisely leaves pink as the dominant impression to counter the grime. Ryan Kwanten puts in solid work and it ends up as if Moorhead and Benson went Henenlotter. It’s the film’s ambition that sticks in the memory.

 The newest by the Adams family was ‘Where the Devil Roams’. Indie-low/no-budget filmmaking at its best. Sideshow sinister stuff and Depression era family murder road trip, with a big topping of body-horror. Often resembling a story told through vintage photographs, a film that looks the part while embracing its anachronisms without forfeiting mood (the wonderful rock music!).  Fascinating faces and black humoured morbidity abound, but when asked in the Q&A what this film might says about the Adams family, Toby Poser elucidated that she felt it was concerned with the question of children facing their parents' mortality. Might be the Adams family’s most ambitious and accomplished.

Also impressive in the low budget end is James Morris’ ‘He Never Left’. Starts with an underwhelming first kill, but as soon as the car boot opens and Colin Cunningham pops out, the film compels with his performance and a laying on of other stories and angles running unseen but parallel. Cunningham excels as a fugitive trying to control his temper one minute and losing it the next, in a constant state of panic and guilt.

 You might be forgiven for thinking that we're not in the slasher flick the poster promises, but it's that too - even if it does that diffusing technique of carrying the story right into the credits. There's a lot to superficially enjoy, but its underlying theme of broken people due to bad parenting and child abuse - and the fact that one of its endings has the agents in pursuit of the fugitive lamenting the legacy of serial killers but not quite catching on - has the film reaching for greater depth and leaving more than the usual residue by respecting trauma. In this way, it’s also interested a little in dissecting its own crime-meets-horror genre, having its cake and eating it.

 

·         And…

 

Other films like Joe Lynch’s ‘Suitable Flesh’, the Bloomquist’s ‘Founder’s Day’, Rob Savage’s ‘The Boogeyman’, and Jenn Wexler’s ‘The Sacrifice Game’ filled a Horror-sized hole in a kind of processed snack way, and very much fleeting, although ‘Suitable Flesh’ certainly was loud and  happy with itself on social media.

Films like Takeshi Kushida’s ‘My Mother’s Eyes’ and Teresa Sutherland’s ‘Lovely, Dark and Deep’ erred on the side of artiness, but they did have art – and in the former, Grand Guignol; the latter unsatisfying conclusions.

 

More satisfying in the uncanny horror was Karoline Lyngbye’s ‘Superposition’. More failing reality, one of my favourite horror fears. Like ‘Marriage Story’ meets ‘Coherence’, a couple decide to and leave society behind, taking their young son with them, so they can repair the fractures in their marriage. This is a couple fully self-aware of their narcissism and privilege in the modern world, and there’s irony in that they will be blogging about their off-the-grid experience. But alternative realities have other ideas, and they are forced to face their marriage problems by negotiating with themselves. As always with doppelganger scenarios where the definitions and characters get a little blurred (sometimes deliberately; keep track), there may be a little confusion here and there, but Lyngbye’s film never loses sight of that aforementioned privilege and narcissism and what that might mean should a person be faced with this during a mid-life crises. A true existential, character study chiller, cooly played and sure-handed.

Modest but ambitious minor efforts like Ted Geoghegan’s ‘Brooklyn ‘45’, ‘The Last Video Store’, ‘Cold Meat’, and Thomas Sieben’s ‘Home Sweet Home: Where Evil Lives’ impressed more with their ambition and atmosphere with limited resources. ‘Home Sweet Home’ was a One Take Wonder but had real blocking instead of relying upon shaky-cam all the time to  cover up what it may be deficient in, and even strikingly featured a flashback.

After an initial twist, Sébastien Drouin’s ‘Cold Meat’ emerged as a chamber piece of killer and victim in a car, stranded in a blizzard, offers two great performances with a decent script and a lot of enjoyable detail about their predicament. If the supernatural element seems like a deux ex machina, even if foreshadowed, with use of Native American mythology a little unsteady, but this doesn't scupper the good work that has gone before. A relatively smart and entertaining thriller.

 

Viljar Bøe’s ‘Good Boy’ only had so many places to go with its premise – a millionaire lives with Frank, a man dressed permanently as a dog, much to the millionaire’s date’s surprise – but it kept it vibe of unsettling and uncomfortable throughout, had fine performances and, even when you knew what it was, it kept itself brief and ended on a logical, still disconcerting and satisfying punchline.

Cody Kennedy and Tim Rutherford’s ‘The Last Video Store’ was plenty fun. I often come across comments where people say horror and comedy rarely works, but I can only assume they aren’t paying much attention. At FrightFest, the horror comedy is a staple and ‘The Last Video Store’ is another good example. Kevin Martin owns The Lobby DVD Shop , a real VHS store still hanging on – here called Blaster Video – and that’s the setting for this showdown with a demonic VHS tape. He plays the lead too.

A self-aware, self-deprecating homage, joyful in its own way, armed with only a single beloved location, two vivid leads and a number of good genre gags. It may not be anything exceptional, but it is highly likeable, funny and infused with a melancholy that makes sense of its purple-and-neon hued nostalgia and claustrophobia.

 

It was certainly less needy than Nahnatchka Khan’s ‘Totally Killer’. Agreeable enough mash-up of Time-Travel and Slasher scenarios - although stronger on the latter as it's free-and-easy with the details of the former. Rather, Sally finds herself flung back in time to stop the unsolved Sweet Sixteen murders that marred her Ideal American Suburb.  This allows for '80s nostalgia and jokes about how much culture has changed, at least from what we know from the slasher era. Yes, Sally is fairly obnoxious and entitled, but it's easy enough to warm to her as she barnstorms her way through the past like it's a console game where the environment doesn't question her presence too much. The humour is that kind where she's constantly talking out of the side of her mouth to the audience, but there are a few good "wasn't-the-past-different? gags". It has enough nastiness and twistiness and silliness to  entertain, but neither is it as satisfyingly clever as Blumhouse's 'Happy Death Day'.

But more successfully and unapologetically fun was Elizabeth Banks’ ‘Cocaine Bear’. It was just what you expected/wanted from that title; yes, stupid et cetera, but the surprise was that it wasn’t shit. But of course, your mileage may vary.

 

 A downbeat end note

So maybe all this sounds very positive, but why not? There was a lot of good watching, and anyway, like anyone, I mostly watch avoid what I doubt will float my boat. So no ‘Thanksgiving’ or ‘The Nun II’ or ‘The Exorcist: Believer’; or ‘Equilizer 3’ or ‘Fast X’, or… And I’ll catch up with ‘Oppenheimer’, ‘Flowers of the Killer Moon’, ‘Monster’ (Koreeda), ‘How to Have Sex’, and plenty others later.

But if you are after something more negative – and I’ll swing big - Scott Beck and Bryan Woods ‘65’ really missed an opportunity, and Payton Reed’s ‘Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania’ was so thin that you could pop it with the sharp end of your disinterest. Superficial stuff that squandered any good will going in.

And so... got a lot of catching up to do.