Emily Wilson, a translator responsible for the 2017 edition of the epic poem, slammed Christopher Nolan’s adaptation after the director claimed Wilson’s translation was an influence on his work
According to Wilson, Nolan’s script lacks “psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.”
“It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, [or] war,” she wrote in an essay for the August 13, 2026, London Review of Books which was published on Monday, July 27. “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.”
Wilson, a classical studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania, explained that Nolan’s big screen adaptation “lacks many of the elements that make the poem great.”
Despite Wilson’s criticism, the film, which hit theaters earlier this month, has become a massive blockbuster success and earned rave reviews from critics and moviegoers alike.
While speaking to Empire magazine in November 2025, Nolan revealed he took inspiration from Wilson’s translation, specifically the opening line of Homer’s epic. Though Wilson was aware of the praise, she claimed, “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”
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