{"id":7014,"date":"2026-07-15T22:06:34","date_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:06:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7014"},"modified":"2026-07-15T22:06:34","modified_gmt":"2026-07-15T17:06:34","slug":"the-odyssey-is-just-another-reason-for-despair","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=7014","title":{"rendered":"The Odyssey Is Just Another Reason for Despair"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, Hathaway\u2019s Penelope is weary for a different reason: though she\u2019s holding out hope that her husband Odysseus is still alive, she must fend off 108 boorish suitors\u2014they\u2019re like Airbnb guests who refuse to leave. These men, each aspiring to become king, hope to bully her into marrying. Chief among them is the aggressively reptilian Antinous\u2014Robert Pattinson plays him with a plastered-on leer. Hathaway\u2019s costumes and jewelry are the saving grace of these scenes: at one point she wears a gown that falls around her in lustrous teal folds, a testament to the fact that Nolan does at least strive to hire the best craftspeople\u2014not just anybody can dye fabric to look this luminous. (The costume designer here is Ellen Mirojnick.)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p data-testid=\"paragraph-element\" class=\"rich-text mb-6 font-graphik text-body-large text-black-coffee mt-8 focus-visible:outline focus-visible:outline-black-coffee focus-visible:outline-2 focus-visible:outline-offset-2 focus-visible:shadow-focus-color text-left\">But unlike Odysseus, who survives being waylaid by giants, sorceresses, nymphs, and numerous other distractions, Nolan himself becomes dragged down by the details of his <em>Odyssey.<\/em> The poem, packed with events, with description, with magic and all manner of deceptions, is episodic by nature. How do you make this story flow and glide on-screen? Maybe you do it not by trying to pack everything in, but by cutting away, by focusing on the most potent, exciting, and moving details. You might do something along the lines of what Uberto Pasolini did with his underseen 2024 picture <em>The Return,<\/em> with <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/7345975\/28-years-later-the-bone-temple-review\/\" title=\"undefined\" target=\"_self\">Ralph Fiennes<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/time.com\/6195091\/both-sides-of-the-blade-review\/\" title=\"undefined\" target=\"_self\">Juliette Binoche<\/a>, which takes the final stretch of <em>The Odyssey <\/em>and weaves it into a graceful, moving whole. It doesn\u2019t help that Nolan\u2019s <em>Odyssey<\/em>\u2014even when viewed, as he hopes audiences will see it, in IMAX\u2014looks muddy and underwhelming. <em>The Return<\/em> was shot in Greece and Italy, and its landscapes are part of its vitality; cinematographer Marius Panduru made Ithaca look like a place worth coming home to. In Nolan\u2019s <em>Odyssey,<\/em> shot by his frequent collaborator Hoyte van Hoytema in a host of locations including Italy, Greece, Morocco, Iceland, and Scotland, almost every landscape\u2014a churning sea here, a set of cliffs there\u2014just looks like business as usual, only bigger. There\u2019s soil, but you don\u2019t feel its texture; there\u2019s sun, but you don\u2019t feel its warmth. When Damon\u2019s Odysseus is greeted by his ancient, dying dog Argos, who has waited patiently and poignantly for his return, Argos\u2019s little tail wriggles mechanically as he takes his last breath. Odysseus expresses a flash of grief, and then it\u2019s on to the next beat. There isn\u2019t a minute to lose here, even in a runtime of nearly three hours.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Meanwhile, back in Ithaca, Hathaway\u2019s Penelope is weary for a different reason: though she\u2019s holding out hope that her husband Odysseus is still alive, she must fend off 108 boorish suitors\u2014they\u2019re like Airbnb guests who refuse to leave. These men, each aspiring to become king, hope to bully her into marrying. Chief among them is&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7015,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/static.time.com\/v3\/assets\/bltea6093859af6183b\/bltd1257bc3f5e84dde\/6a57ba3931a18d7eb2d6cdd8\/CT-03414.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pics-news"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}