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Feminist scholar Emily Wilson says box office smash is ‘too confused, its characters too underdeveloped’
Published Jul 27, 2026 • Last updated 8 hours ago • 3 minute read
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Matt Damon as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey. Photo by submitted photoArticle content
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Emily Wilson, the classicist whose translation of Homer’s 3,000-year-old ancient Greek epic The Odyssey inspired director Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of the story, has attacked the production, saying, “I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”
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The department chair and professor of classical studies at the University of Pennsylvania lambasted Nolan’s box office smash hit in an essay for the London Review of Books.
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She wrote: “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.”
A new culture war battle
It’s surprising to some that Wilson is criticizing the movie, given that the film has been the target of online anti-woke voices. Her translation of Homer’s epic poem has been criticized (or praised depending on who you talk to) as a feminist interpretation of the work — accusing her of inaccurately representing the source material to fulfil an underlying agenda.
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One of most contentious subjects over the film has been Nolan’s casting choices. Greeks have spoken out about the movie, asking where the Greek actors are in this Greek story.
“We understand the ambition behind bringing it to the screen on a global scale and we recognize the artistic tradition of reinterpretation that has surrounded these epics for centuries,” the Greek City Times wrote in an open letter to Nolan. “But we also ask you to consider something that is often overlooked in modern retellings of Greek stories. We did not vanish. Greek people did not disappear after the age of myth. Greek culture was not frozen in classical marble. The Greek language was not extinguished in antiquity. We are still here.”
Such casting choices include actors who don’t have Greek heritage like Matt Damon (Odysseus), Charlize Theron (Calypso) and Lupita Nyong’o, who plays Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra.
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Nyong’o came under fire for her assertion that Homer — who is estimated to have lived in the eighth or ninth century BC — wasn’t thinking enough about female representation in movies.
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“I would be like, ‘So Homer, how do you feel about the screen time given to these women given how little you spent with them, OK?” Nyong’o said before smugly mugging for the camera.
A box office hit in any case
You can argue about the controversy, but you can’t argue about the commercial success of the film. So far, The Odyssey has made more than $650 million over just two weekends since its release in theatres, a huge success given its $250-million budget.
Wilson, for her part, is glad the movie is doing so well, saying it’s generating new interest in ancient Greek culture.
“This epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas … translations of Odyssey, including mine, are flying off the shelves … (and) perhaps the film will persuade a few college administrators not to cut their literature, language and history departments,” she told the Sunday Times.
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