British American classicist scholar Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation of Homer’s The Odyssey inspired Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster film interpretation of the nearly 2,800-year-old poem, is entirely underwhelmed by the end product. To say the least.
The academic used a brutal essay in the London Review of Books to decry Nolan’s $250 million work as delivering an “abysmal” screenplay, despairing ” I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.
Wilson has also translated Seneca and Euripides, as well as Homer’s Iliad as part of her work as a professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania. In her appraisal Wilson writes:
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.
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 neighbours. 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.
Wilson also went on to note Nolan’s admiration for the opening line of her Odyssey translation: “Tell me about a complicated man” – but added: “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”
Wilson furthered her attack in an interview with the London Sunday Times, saying: “It didn’t land emotionally for me at all. Which I think is partly about the fact that, unlike Homer, it’s not very well written.”
“The characters don’t have the kind of depth the Homeric characters have. I felt, ‘Do I really care if this guy gets back to his wife?’ You haven’t given me any reason to.”
Despite Wilson’s withering takedowns of the three hour epic – and those of other critics – it would appear she is at odds with the film’s audience.
As Breitbart News reported, The Odyssey continued to hold a solid grip on moviegoers in its second weekend in North American theaters, with $87 million in ticket sales, according to studio estimates Sunday.
That’s only a 30 percent drop from its first weekend, an incredibly modest slide for a blockbuster. It’s also filmmaker Christopher Nolan’s best second weekend ever, not accounting for inflation.
In 2008, The Dark Knight earned $75.2 million in weekend two.