Opinion |“The Odyssey”: an Epic Journey in a Theatre

Rosemary Ganley, Contributing Columnist
The Peterborough Examiner August 1st, 2026

I’m so old-fashioned I only watch feature films on a big screen in a movie house .I
thought there were only a few of us left. But the afternoon in mid July when I drove to
Galaxy Cinema in downtown Peterborough, the underground parking lot was crammed
full. I simply drove around and left. Realized later it was a “Reduced Price” Tuesday.
The buzz around British director Chriopher Nolan’s retelling of famous Greek poet
Homer’s epic work, “ The Odyssey “, written in 800 B.C., has meant that a massive,
widespread education in the classics is underway in our society. I needed first to clear
up why it was I kept referring to the hero of the Trojan war as Ulysses. That was
because “Ulysses” was the term the Romans used for him .
In university English class, I read “The Iliad” and “The Odyssey” with help from Coles
Notes. Then I became an English teacher. Ah, the ways of the world. I had some grasp
then and more now, that great stories can shape one’s view of the world and one’s
moral sensibility, as well as entertain.
Christopher Nolan, the British screenwriter and director whose impressive earlier work
includes “Oppenheimer” and “Dunkirk”, obviously grasps that too. He was knighted for
his work in 2024. My film companion told me Nolan had the funds collected for 100 days
of shooting, and he wrapped it up in 91 days. In several countries, with hundreds of
actors.
In the story, after ten years of war in Troy, with their victory in hand, the Greeks just want
to go home. The return trip takes another ten, so rich is it with challenge and
misadventure.
Vivid accounts such as the one escaping the Sirens that had the frightened mariners
putting wax in their ears to keep out the attractive but deadly sound, and then rowing
like mad, or the one with the murderous Cyclops with one eye in the middle of his
forehead in a dreaded attack ,or the one on the Lotus- Eater island where Odysseus is
tempted to give it all up and stay, or the one with the enchantress Circe turning mariners
into pigs.
Anne Hathaway does a strong turn as Odysseus’ wife ,Penelope, waiting for Odysseus
for 20 years in Ithaca. surrounded by persistent suitors. Perhaps the best- known
adventure shows Odysseus’ cunning in constructing a giant wooden horse, and filling it

with Greeks who emerge to attack the Trojans once they have dragged the horse into
the city.
The Trojan horse has become part of western cultural history, ripe with meaning. I was
keen to see what Nolan and his star, Matt Damon, would do with these stories.
I am told that in Greek schools today. every grade seven student studies “The Odyssey’.
I appreciated the low tech of the times: fights with bows and arrows, no explosions,
rowing as a means of transportation. The focus is on the characters. and their
intelligence and cunning.
Much is made of the gods’ influence ; Zeus, first of all, but Athena and Poseidon too.
There is a strong and shared sense of morality and right order, which the director seems
to recommend.
Matt Damon is strongly built, suitably a leader, and clever, as in showing up for the
homecoming as a beggar. There will be Oscar buzz for his performance, and for the
ensemble as a whole. I especially like Samantha Morton as Circe.
Still, one would have benefitted from some training in endurance before this show. No
movie, no matter how noble, should stretch to 3 hours, and this one does. And costs
$20. The volume of the film had my companion remove her hearing aids.
It is finally a not- to- be-missed experience and an education in the great themes of
classical literature brought to you by a thoroughly modern filmmaker who has touches of
genius.