THE ODYSSEY Translator Doubles Down on Christopher Nolan Criticism, Says the Film Misses the Human Heart of Homer's Epic

Emily Wilson isn't backing away from her criticism of Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. In fact, she's expanding on it.

After delivering a scathing review of Nolan's adaptation in the London Review of Books, the acclaimed Homer translator has now returned with another essay, this time for The Atlantic, where she zeroes in on one of the film's most iconic sequences: the Trojan Horse.

Wilson, who is also a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania and the celebrated translator of The Odyssey and The Iliad, believes Nolan's interpretation continues a pattern she identified in her original review.

While the director delivers visually impressive set pieces, she argues the emotional, psychological, and moral core of Homer's story gets pushed aside.

In her earlier review, Wilson said she had hoped Nolan's fascination with epic storytelling would result in something that captured the depth of Homer's work. Instead, she came away disappointed.

"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.

“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."

She didn't stop there. Wilson also offered a sweeping critique of the screenplay and what she sees as the adaptation's biggest shortcomings.

"Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ lacks many of the elements that make the poem great. 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 neighbors.

“It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. 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."

Now, Wilson has narrowed her focus to the Trojan Horse sequence, arguing that it perfectly illustrates what she believes the adaptation gets wrong.

She says Nolan's version strips away the emotional complexity that defines Homer's telling of the story. “The Odyssey contains far more pontificating about values and civilizational decline but much less coherence and less heart.

“It gestures at a critique of xenophobia and violence, but it focuses primarily on the perspective of the guilty, traumatized warrior rather than that of his victims.”

Wilson argues that the film spends too much time showcasing the mechanics of war instead of exploring the people affected by it. Rather than examining the consequences of deception and violence, she says the adaptation becomes fascinated with how the Trojan Horse operates.

She points to Homer's depiction of Odysseus weeping after hearing the story of Troy, noting that the poem intentionally leaves readers uncertain whether he is mourning his guilt over the massacre or grieving the years he has spent away from Ithaca. That ambiguity, she says, is central to the character.

According to Wilson, Nolan abandons that perspective. She stated that the movie is “not interested in the social or psychological questions of how people deceive and are deceived.” Instead, it focuses more on the logistics of rolling the horse uphill and the claustrophobic, waterlogged interior.”

She also argues that when the Trojan Horse attack begins, the emphasis shifts toward collapsing structures and burning buildings instead of the people caught in the slaughter.

That criticism carries over into the film's visual storytelling as well. “Verbally, we are told that people matter; visually, we are shown that they do not.”

Wilson also believes there's a disconnect between what the script says and what the audience actually sees. “The script tells us loudly that people matter, but the camera shows us that what matters is the mechanical challenge of moving objects through space,” she wrote.

Whether audiences agree with Wilson or not, it's clear her criticism has remained remarkably consistent across both essays. From her broader review of The Odyssey to her detailed breakdown of the Trojan Horse sequence, she argues that Nolan's adaptation favors scale, engineering, and spectacle over the emotional and ethical questions that have kept Homer's epic relevant for nearly three millennia.

It's an interesting perspective, especially coming from someone who has spent years immersed in the original text. While many viewers may embrace Nolan's cinematic approach, Wilson believes the film loses sight of the humanity that sits at the center of Homer's timeless story.