Of course I wanted to see The Odyssey. I write fantasy novels, spent years working as a studio executive, and now coach writers through their own versions of the hero’s journey. Homer’s Odyssey is arguably the most famous of them all.

As a progressive, bisexual, spiritually minded, anti-war feminist, I was also curious to see what Christopher Nolan would do with a 2,800-year-old epic built around war, masculinity, power, fidelity, and homecoming—one that, like most of us, I hadn’t read since high school.

I avoided trailers and reviews so I could go in fresh. I was aware of the casting controversy but dismissed it as culture-war nonsense (I was thrilled to see the casting of Lupita Nyong’o and Elliot Page). And because the movie felt like an event, I corralled a group of friends for the adventure. Fun friends. Friends willing to dress like ancient Greeks.

Ironically, getting to the movie became an odyssey of its own. The historic theater where we were supposed to see it—one co-owned by Nolan—had an air-conditioning failure two hours before showtime, so we were rerouted to another theater and arrived just in time.

Fortunately, none of the ticket-takers were cannibalistic Cyclopes.

Once we finally settled into our seats and made sure we had emptied our bladders (it’s a looooong movie), the film quickly shifted the idea of an “odyssey” from an adventurous journey into something darker: a story about what desperate people become on the way home. One of the film’s recurring questions, raised by Penelope at the beginning, is whether the mysterious, marauding “people from the sea” will reach Ithaca and contribute to the collapse of the Bronze Age world.

Ultimately, those people turn out to be Odysseus and his crew—men making destructive, immoral choices in their desperate quest to return home. After ten years of fighting at Troy, they abandon xenia, the sacred obligation to offer protection and dignity to strangers and guests. Nolan broadens that ancient principle into something like a moral compact. Treat others with the compassion and respect you would hope to receive yourself.

Odysseus, the great trickster, helps lead the way into moral catastrophe. In Nolan’s telling, it’s his idea to turn a supposed offering—the Trojan horse—into an instrument of war. The plan is “successful,” assuming you consider winning a war and killing a shitload of people in the process a success.

For an interesting analysis of Odysseus as a trickster, and what that archetype might say about our current moment, I recommend Ezra Klein’s discussion here.

The shame and guilt Odysseus carries afterward form the heart of Nolan’s story, although Homer and Nolan depict their hero somewhat differently. For the record, I don’t need a film adaptation to be wholly faithful to its source. New interpretations of classic works can reveal as much about the era adapting them as the era that created them. I once read a description of Homer’s Odysseus as “a prick who reluctantly learns humility.” Nolan’s version feels more like a fundamentally decent man being forced to take responsibility for the devastation he has helped cause.

The film makes other significant changes as well. Homer’s Circe is a dangerous and seductive sorceress who transforms Odysseus’s men and later becomes his lover and host. Nolan reimagines her as an assault survivor with a very different agenda. Homer’s Calypso rescues Odysseus but also detains him for years despite his longing to return home. In the film, she functions less as a captor and more as someone helping him confront and process his trauma. Athena, meanwhile, becomes a personification of Odysseus’s conscience, appearing with the face of a young priestess slaughtered by his men during the fall of Troy. Personally, I liked these choices.

As a storyteller, I’m drawn to Big Ideas. Some authors begin a novel with a character, a world, or a plot twist they can’t stop thinking about. I usually begin with a theme or a question: Why do human beings behave as we do? Why is existence structured this way? And can any of it be changed?

Nolan asks similarly expansive questions here. What makes a civilization worth saving? How can a world on the brink of collapse change course? What kind of hero does that world need? Those are potent questions for a society that once again feels terrifyingly close to the edge. Anything that persuades a mass audience to wrestle with them earns a thumbs-up from me.

But the moment that resonated most deeply with my own writing concerned trust—and the terrifying necessity of letting go. Odysseus spends much of the story trying to force his way home through cunning, intellect, deceit, and sheer will. Yet it is only when he finally surrenders control, trusts the gods, builds a raft, and throws himself into the ocean that he finds his way back to Ithaca. To be clear, I’m not religious. But I do believe there’s something profoundly spiritual about having the courage to stop forcing an outcome and allow something larger to move through you.

Sometimes effort is necessary, sometimes persistence is heroic, and sometimes our determination to control everything becomes the very thing keeping us lost.

Did I have quibbles with the film? Of course. It felt unnecessarily long in places, and there were a few scenes I could have done without. The lessons Odysseus learns also felt somewhat less potent after watching him slaughter all the suitors at the end. But I suppose there was only so much Nolan could—or wanted to—change about Homer.

I did appreciate that Odysseus doesn’t just reclaim his throne upon returning home, as he does in the poem. Instead, he’s forced into exile with Penelope, while Telemachus becomes king. The old hero can’t just pick up his former life. Change has consequences.

One of my own writing mentors used to say that all great stories are about wounded heroes who learn to change. That’s certainly true of many of my favorite stories, and of the stories I want to tell. I love that Nolan’s film is creating renewed interest in Homer and inspiring people to discuss these juicy, uncomfortable questions about what it means to be human. For me, there’s no greater honor than hearing that something I wrote moved someone, made them think, or even pissed them off.

Great.

Stories are meant to entertain us, but also to move us, unsettle us, and—occasionally—help us imagine that people and civilizations can choose differently. Nolan’s Odyssey did that for me. It also gave me an excuse to wear a gold laurel crown in public, which I highly recommend.

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