It’s uncomfortable saying anything negative about The Odyssey right now. In an age of mediocre sequels and uninspired live action adaptations, it feels necessary to exclusively put good vibes into the universe about a big budget event film with high art aspirations that’s doing its own thing. Most of us want more movies like it, and because of that desire, it’s more comfortable to just tell people, “The Odyssey is great! Go see it.”
The truth, however, is that The Odyssey is not great. It’s merely good, and the reason why it’s a step below great is because it has a major side character problem. More specifically, it’s filled with dozens of disposable side characters with one-note personalities who are merely there to advance the plot.
It’s Mostly A Problem Of Structure
I know The Odyssey is a long movie, but even for a long movie, a lot of stuff happens. We get the Trojan Horse and the destruction that comes afterwards. We get the bit with the cyclops, the bit with the sirens and the bit with Scylla and Charybids. There’s an extended sequence with Calypso and the Lotus Flowers. There’s the cattle of Helios and the entire fallout from that. There’s the stuff with Circe and Odysseus’ men and then the stuff with Circe and Odysseus himself. There’s the scene where he meets with the soldiers who have died, and the scene where they have to escape the man-eating giants.
And that’s just the stuff involving Odysseus while he’s on his extended adventure. We also get a parallel plot that runs throughout the movie that involves his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus. She has to fend off the suitors who want to marry her and take her place, and Telemachus goes on his own side quest to Sparta to meet with Menelaus and try to figure out if his father is really dead.
Altogether, it’s too much plot for a single movie. It would have been an impossible task to get through all of this in three hours without abridging and trying to move through everything with a brisk momentum.
But That Doesn’t Change The Fact That These Side Characters Are Not Good
Most of The Odyssey’s runtime follows Odysseus’ quest to get home alongside his men. Unfortunately, we spend almost no time with those actual men at all. There are a few scenes of plot-driven banter and minor character development between Matt Damon’s Odysseus and Himesh Patel’s Eurylochus, but there’s nothing particularly memorable or noteworthy about their relationship.
They don’t have a fun rapport or any distinct conversations. And we get almost nothing from anyone else, apart from occasional reaction shots and maybe the odd bit of dialogue here or there. They have no quirks, eccentricities or memorable facets to their personalities. They’re just around to move the plot along.
Unfortunately, that’s a recurring theme with most of the characters in the movie, even the ones that should stand out. Take Charlize Theron’s Calypso. Odysseus spends years eating the Lotus Flowers and living with her on the island, but for the sake of runtime, we’re really just told about it. We don’t see them spending any real time together, and she’s not even given a fully developed personality. Theron has been nominated for three Oscars and has a long track record of doing really weird and memorable things with many of her characters, and yet, she feels so subdued here.
You could go down the list and say the same thing for side character after side character. Zendaya's Athena, Jon Bernthal’s Menelaus, Lupita Nyong’o’s Helen Of Troy and Mia Goth’s maid servant, are all, in theory, key characters played by acclaimed actors who should have a memorable impact on the movie, and instead, they’re just kind of there. Sometimes they deliver really emotional and weighty dialogue, but since we’re not given time to get to know their characters, they just feel like words moving along the plot.
I can’t imagine anyone leaving The Odyssey and saying, ‘you know what side character I really loved?’ Even the ones who are in the movie for a substantial amount of time feel so shallow and without. Robert Pattinson is, I guess, trying to be a little quirky with his portrayal of Antinous, who is the stand-in for the suitors that we see the most, but he’s still ultimately a stock villain from the sleazy handbook.
Samantha Morton’s Circe and John Leguizamo’s Eumaeus are getting a bit of positive buzz, but in my opinion, they still feel semi-neutered or at least like unrealized potential. Morton is in the movie for like fifteen minutes, maybe, and chooses to go a bit more understated than the set buzz had me believe, and almost all of Leguizamo’s scenes are just an old man getting picked on and looking downtrodden (apart from that wild puppy scene).
It’s A Missed Opportunity
Once again, none of this is to say The Odyssey is a bad movie or not worth your time. It’s a good movie that is worth your time. You should go see it because it’s (for the most part) an achievement in what’s possible and has a ton of scenes that work really well. There’s so much about the film that’s worth praising, but none of it has to do with character development, which is mediocre at best for Damon's Odysseus, as well as the other two leads Anne Hathaway (who makes the most of her one-note widow) and Tom Holland (who is decent as the one-note meek son).
I don’t know how Nolan could have possibly developed all these characters in three hours, but ultimately, he picked this story and this format. Maybe it should have been two movies. Maybe it should have been a miniseries. I don’t know what the answer was, but I think we should be honest that the path he picked has obvious limitations.
It sucks that the sirens were a three minute afterthought because there wasn’t time to develop their characters. It sucks that we didn’t get more from Theron or Bernthal or Nyong’o. It sucks that Morton’s Circe was only around for like ninety seconds before she showed her true intentions. All of these characters could have been the centerpiece of entire movies or episodes or at least hour long chunks. Instead, they’re underdeveloped. Instead, they’re part of a side character problem that can’t be overlooked.
