Discourse surrounding “The Odyssey” doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon, as one major player enters the arena: Emily Wilson, the only woman to have published a translation of the Homeric text and the classicist Christopher Nolan has cited as an influence on the film.
Since its publication, her review of “The Odyssey” has made its way across the internet—its 4000-word expanse inevitably collapsed into its climactic passage: “[The Odyssey] lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth. Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
Her review has gone so viral that it momentarily crashed the official website of the London Review of Books last Monday. As one would expect, her words lashed like a whip, offending film bros and Nolan fans who have had strong reactions to the film. Sitting comfortably at 94 percent on Rotten Tomatoes, “The Odyssey” has been widely well-received by both critics and general audiences alike.
The backlash against Wilson’s ‘cranky’ review
Many social media users were quick to share their thoughts on Wilson’s review. While some welcomed her criticism, calling both the success of the film and the virality of her review “signs of a somewhat healthy-adjacent public intellectual culture,” the reactions online were overwhelmingly negative. X was flooded with posts about the nature of the review, expressing distaste for the tone with which Wilson conveyed her thoughts—calling it hateful, vitriolic, and unnecessarily mean.
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Even five-time Pulitzer Prize finalist Joyce Carol Oates chimed in. She took to X to call out Wilson’s “crude language” likening her to “MAGA folks attacking someone with ideas that differ from hers.”
“One would expect a translator, of all people, beholden to a text, in service to a text, to be just a wee bit more thoughtful [and] respectful of others who are acting in good faith just as (she would claim) she is,” writes Oates.
Social media users not only questioned Wilson’s intentions in writing the review but also commented on her seeming inability to just have fun and enjoy the film. One post read, “[It] just sounds like when something is your special interest so you can never enjoy it at a base level ever again.”
The disconcerting nature of today’s discourse
The sentiments of such comments should inevitably raise alarm for some, as anti-woke communities tend to wield similar rhetoric—the idea that those with left-leaning politics have some sort of allergy to joy and are, therefore, on a mission to condemn others to eternal misery. Other comments are more outwardly aggressive, willfully misunderstanding Wilson by suggesting her problem with the film stems from Nolan’s diversion from the original text, as if she isn’t a scholarly person who understands and values the work of interpretation.
Despite the fact that her critique acknowledges the nature of the poem as a composite of many different cultural and linguistic influences, reactions to her review deliberately overlook this and reduce her words to that of a spoiled brat, a bitter academic who didn’t get her way.
The reaction is particularly curious because it’s as if the concept of abrasive film criticism is completely foreign to us as movie-watchers and Letterboxd users. We are used to encountering an argument through the stubbornness and difficulty of frank, hostile text. Part of the joy of a review is rendered through the surprise of humor, the ways in which wit can upend the grim evaluation at stake. Wilson herself utilizes this technique in the most well-remembered line of her writing: “There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible.”
So what’s the big deal now? Is our critical ability to navigate discourse declining? What does it mean when our online communities opt out of wrestling with complex ideas, and choose to attack the person behind them instead?
The insights we miss out on
Wilson raises valuable points that would be a shame to overlook. Underscoring her critique is how Odysseus is stripped of his moral ambiguity—his desire for sex, food, and glory as well as the key facets of his cleverness—because the film struggles to decide its own politics. For any filmmaker adapting Homer, the major difficulty is in navigating the portrayal of archaic values to modern audiences. Wilson points out that Nolan, having chosen to selectively sanitize the original text, merely surfaces as indecisive.
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Wilson’s thoughts regarding the women in “The Odyssey” is another valid and substantial concern, particularly the flattening of Calypso into a glorified therapist, a feminized role that veers away from her original angst, rage, and loneliness. Wilson also highlights how both Athena and Penelope play the eternally virtuous female companion—another missed opportunity for depth on Nolan’s part.
The final paragraph of Wilson’s review acknowledges how she has come to profit off the buzz from “The Odyssey”: “Despite all this, the release of ‘The Odyssey’ is still an event to celebrate. In what we are told is the streaming era, this epic is bringing audiences back to cinemas. In what we are told is a time of declining literacy and the ‘death of the humanities’, translations of ‘The Odyssey,’ including mine, are flying off the shelves,” she writes.
This is another reason to commend her review however one feels about its tone. The review is an act of courage—a plight to preserve the nuance at risk of erasure and a stand against the imposed gratitude many are wont to subject her to.
One post on X hits the nail on the head: “[There] is no circumstance in which Christopher Nolan is an underdog or ‘The Odyssey’ is a victim. He’s the most powerful director in history and it’s the most popular, acclaimed, successful movie of the year. Emily Wilson is punching up, not down. She’s David, not Goliath,” it reads.
Ultimately, criticism is a form of appreciation. When Wilson chooses to air her grievances about “The Odyssey,” she is choosing to take Nolan seriously as a cultural voice. She is championing Nolan as worthy of thought and worthy of discussion. Some may call it condescending, but condescension comes from a refusal to engage. This is not that. This is the opposite.
