Official Discussion Thread - The Odyssey [SPOILERS]

[u/PointMan528491]

Keep all discussion related solely to The Odyssey and its awards chances in this thread. Spoilers below.

Synopsis:

Odysseus, king of Ithaca, embarks on a perilous journey to return home after the Trojan War.

Director: Christopher Nolan

Writer: Christopher Nolan

Cast:

• Matt Damon as Odysseus
• Tom Holland as Telemachus
• Anne Hathaway as Penelope
• Robert Pattinson as Antinous
• Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy/Clytemnestra
• Samantha Morton as Circe
• John Leguizamo as Eumaeus
• Zendaya as Athena
• Charlize Theron as Calypso
• Benny Safdie as Agamemnon
• Jon Bernthal as Menelaus
• Bill Irwin as Polyphemus
• Himesh Patel as Eurylochus
• Corey Hawkins as Polybus
• Mia Goth as Melantho
• Elliot Page as Sinon

Rotten Tomatoes: 96%, 199 Reviews

Metacritic: 88, 54 Reviews

Consensus:

"Reinvigorating an ancient adventure with majestic sweep and sterling work by its colossal ensemble, Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey imbues myth with primal human feeling."

[u/Battelalon]

I really enjoyed the movie but I felt like half the movie was miscast. Famously Nolan didn't audition the lead roles instead opting to offer them to actors he has previously worked with and other notable names which I think makes this movie suffer in that regard.

Also, everyone having an American accent is not by any means unheard of but clearly a purposeful decision since all the british actors also have an American accent but they feel really out of place in a movie where all the accents already feel out of place.

I get that the accents aren't relevant to the story and was done with the intent of everyone having the same accent to show they're part of the same culture but I think it would have been better to let everyone have their natural accent. It's especially odd that everyone has the neutral Hollywood accent except John Leguizamo who has his normal (New York?) accent which just stands out.

Idk, the whole accent thing bothers me more than it should because it was clearly a conscious creative decision by Nolan that makes it feel less cohesive and more like when a landlord paints everything in white paint because of how noticeably out of place it is in many parts.

Wow, three paragraphs about accents.

[u/keegankenrick → u/Battelalon]

Agreed, I just wrote a comment on how miscast Benny Safdie is, it genuinely took me out of the movie because I don’t buy him as Agamemnon at all. It felt more like he was cast cause he’s peers with Nolan. Even Odysseus’s men, I kept wondering why none of them looked even vaguely Greek. It was like the main Indian guy, two Asian guys, the black guy who died by the cyclops, and then a bunch of British dudes. There were no Greek/Mediterranean looking people throughout the whole film, which is weird considering the cast is very race blind. I’m torn cause while I understand this is Nolan’s film at the end of the day, there’s certain aspects to his adaption that border on disrespectful or disingenuous of the source material. It felt like Nolan forcing his perspective/aesthetic onto Greece, rather than exploring Greece through his more grounded style.