^{Tom Holland, Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Robert Pattinson, Zendaya. ‘The Odyssey.’ Melinda Sue Gordon/UNIVERSAL}

Why adapt Homer’s Odyssey in this time? One of the most well-known epics still taught in grade school, The Odyssey yields the two most significant motifs in all story-telling: the journey—even the journey home (cue: Dorothy, ET) and the more complicated, the relationship of fathers and sons (even in Kerouac’s words, “the father we never found”). Gods, are you listening?

Through Christopher Nolan’s lens—in the very first film shot in IMAX—signaling bigness on a vast canvas, Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY stays true to the classic vision while embodying cinematic epic dimension. 

Christopher Nolan relies on the classic, alive for thousands of years, for the most inventive, vivid characters, in action, and in narrative structure. Homer’s epic starts “In medias res,” in the middle of things. Taking that story-telling strategy, Nolan begins with that Horse’s presence—and what a HORSE!—with Odysseus and his men packed inside, a weighty gift from the gods—but no, the subterfuge used to win the Trojan War, a war launched by Agamemnon—a war waged for vanity, to retrieve Helen—“the face that launched a thousand ships”—in Yeats’ words, by a leader to whom Odysseus, our loyal hero, cannot say no.

In Homer, Odysseus—Matt Damon plays the movie hero, a smart, fallible, and great Everyman–is swept into the chaos of the sea by its God Poseidon, made to wander through adventures galore, while still yearning for home in Ithaca, and Penelope (a stunning performance by Anne Hathaway), the image of the faithful wife. Along the way he encounters characters, standout roles for Zendaya, Samantha Morton, Charlize Theron and Bill Irwin. John Leguizamo deserves mention as the loyal servant, Eumaeus.

By contrast, Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) returns home to his Clytemnestra (Lupita Nyong’o), now with another man, plotting his murder. Yes, in this tale of love and marriage, we see Odysseus and Penelope in bed in a flashback and see fully how much of a couple they are. When speaking through a screen upon his return, she and her husband now disguised as a beggar enjoy no less than a thoroughly satisfying intimacy.

Nolan weaves the narratives differently, but takes Homer’s cues to full effect, using the images of the horse that contained enemy warriors for continuity and to remind the viewer that bad leadership leads to bad consequences. As to succession, that cannot be left in unworthy hands—as in the free-loading, ne’er-do-well suitors led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson, deliciously evil). In his quest to find his father, Telemachus (a fine, fresh-faced Tom Holland) must achieve the manhood that is his legacy.