Odyssey translator savages Nolan’s blockbuster as ‘gimmicky’ and ‘superficial’
The film has won widespread praise elsewhere, with critics hailing it as a major cinematic event
The translator whose work helped inspire Sir Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey has launched a blistering attack on the director’s latest blockbuster – branding its writing “abysmal”.
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Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation of Homer’s epic was cited by Nolan during the film’s press tour, said she would be “ashamed” to have written the screenplay.
In a review for the London Review of Books, the academic criticised the film’s “gimmicky” narrative and said its characters lacked believable motives.
“None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words,” Wilson wrote.
“It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth.”
She also took aim at the film’s depiction of women, saying that while there were more female characters than in most Nolan films, “none of them has much to say”.
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Wilson said the three-hour epic was an “audiovisual spectacle”, comparing it to an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – with much the same level of emotional depth.
But she acknowledged the film had brought renewed attention to Homer’s poem, with translations of The Odyssey flying off shelves.
“Nolan is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful,” she said.
Nolan previously said the opening line of Wilson’s translation – Tell me about a complicated man – helped shape his portrayal of Odysseus, played by Matt Damon.
The film has won widespread praise elsewhere, with critics hailing it as a major cinematic event.
It stars Damon alongside Zendaya, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Anne Hathaway, Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong’o.