Finally watched Nolan's #Odyssey and so many thoughts! But I'll start with the best thing about it: The #subtitles!

Delicious writing by Despoina (Dessi) Verveniotou. Within the first minutes when I read verbs like καρτερώ and nautical commands like Αγάντα! I was already internally thanking the author for improving the dialogue.

It's no secret that Nolan is a master of visuals, but not a great dialogue writer. And here it was worse than in other films, I mean you can't have Telemachus call Odysseus "Dad!". It's supposed to be an epic set thousands of years ago, right? Well, everything was epic, the visuals, the score - except the words...

Dessi, however, gave the dialogue the elevated register it should have had in the first place. She chose a more poetic, evocative register, suitable for the world of epic without sounding archaic or artificial. Just perfect.
(The theater usher was not impressed, I was the only person still sitting there after the loooooong credits, waiting to verify her name. I already suspected it was her, as I recognize her style, but I had to see it in writing.)

If you're still reading, here are more of my unsolicited thoughts and opinions about the film:

The cave scene was fantastic and I really liked that the Cyclops reminded Goya's Saturn. But even though I was prepared to ignore the liberties Nolan took regarding the original story, I didn't appreciate the omission of one of the best known bits: Odysseus telling the Cyclops Polyphemus that his name is "Nobody". Nor the change of the ending.

And there was one ridiculous script choice, regarding the language convention (and what's meant to be a third language #L3AVT). English clearly stands in for Greek, and that's OK. But then Odysseus’s crew meets people speaking actual Greek and cannot understand them. Then one of the English-speaking sailors says, “We are Greeks from Ithaca.” It works for an audience to whom Greek sounds foreign and unintelligible, but it also makes clear that nobody considered how absurd the scene would feel to Greek viewers. See comments for more info about this choice.

I’m also adding a comment with an article explaining Nolan’s deliberate choice to use everyday dialogue. I still find the argument unconvincing and I think that a skilled, self-respecting screenwriter could have made the dialogue emotionally immediate without making it so mundane. Elevated language does not prevent emotional connection. Shakespeare still moves audiences in the original language, right?

Image credit: Universal, Εύλογη χρήση, Wikipedia.

4 August 2026