Before “The Odyssey” embarked on its theatrical journey, writer-director Christopher Nolan suffered slings and arrows from conservative social media warriors. In their quest to gin up culture war controversy over casting choices in a movie they hadn’t seen, they have succeeded only in helping promote a film that hardly needed extra publicity, while making themselves look stupid.
Because those launching ill-informed broadsides against the film included Elon Musk and Donald Trump Jr. — railing on social media against the casting of Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy because she’s Black, and Elliot Page as a Greek warrior because he’s trans — the attacks became difficult for the media to ignore. Plus, anti-“woke” crusading against a familiar target like “liberal Hollywood” remains one of those gifts (or grifts) that keeps on giving.
Despite the advance obsession over Nyong’o and Page’s characters, the two actors each occupy no more than a few minutes of screen time.
Yet Nolan’s film merely makes those conservative provocateurs sound foolish. At a run time of almost three hours, “The Odyssey” continues the “Oppenheimer” director’s personal war on moviegoers’ bladders. But despite the advance obsession over Nyong’o’s and Page’s characters, the two actors each occupy no more than a few minutes of screen time in a film that stars Matt Damon, Tom Holland and Anne Hathaway. The beauty of being Nolan, at this point, is that his reputation and track record enable him to attract identifiable talent — a la Zendaya, rapper Travis Scott and horror queen Mia Goth — for even smallish roles, a clever means of broadening the film’s appeal.
Musk and others sought to transform that into something nefarious, bizarrely arguing that the diverse casting represented some kind of cynical ploy for awards attention, as well as anti-white bigotry. Never mind that “The Odyssey” is, after all, a mythological tale, so it’s not like the producers cast Nyong’o to play J. Edgar Hoover.
Nolan himself has diplomatically dismissed the right-wing naysaying when asked about it, even as he basks in a torrent of critical praise for the film. Imbued with a visual grandeur that demands to be seen on the biggest screen possible, “The Odyssey” arguably isn’t one of the British filmmaker’s best — movies like “Inception” and “The Prestige” set a very high bar — but it certainly possesses the majesty to qualify as a worthy follow-up to the Oscar-winning “Oppenheimer.”
Without giving too much away, if one can even spoil a 3,000-year-old tale, Nolan’s take on “The Odyssey” also not-so-subtly incorporates modern and timeless themes, including questions about humanity and the toll of eroding a society’s standards of honor and decency. As Jon Stewart told the director earlier this week, that makes it a fitting companion to “Oppenheimer,” while delivering a perhaps unintended rejoinder to Musk and his army of social media trolls.
In an interview with The Telegraph, Nolan politely said such criticism “comes with the territory,” calling it “irrelevant” because those griping months ago, when the anti-“Odyssey” campaign began, hadn’t seen the film. He also cited his experience with the “Batman” trilogy, a fan base with very strong opinions about what will best serve the franchise.
Nolan and Universal, happily and deservedly, appear destined to win this latest battle without stooping to engage their loudest critics.
The people grousing when director Zack Snyder cast Ben Affleck as the Dark Knight, however, mostly operated in good faith, which can’t be said for those attempting to use insufficient fidelity to Homer’s original story to tap into an inexhaustible reservoir of outrage.
The saving grace for them is that those parroting their “go woke, go broke” talking points generally don’t devour box-office reporting by the Hollywood trade papers or necessarily grasp that movies are a global product, which is the metric by which the film looks destined to shine. Although the summer box office has proved unpredictable — with horror movies like “Obsession” raking in record totals and “Moana” and “Supergirl” failing to exhibit much girl power — projections are that “The Odyssey,” tailor-made to premium large-screen formats, will earn roughly $200 million worldwide its opening weekend. That voyage began with nearly $18 million in Thursday previews, the highest domestic total this year.
Whatever the final tally, it should go a long way toward erasing the prospect of a “go broke” scenario for Universal Pictures, the studio releasing the film. Nolan and Universal, happily and deservedly, appear destined to win this latest battle without stooping to engage their loudest critics. But with such relentless foes, consider that one modest victory in what has become a seemingly endless culture war.
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