In sixth grade, I had an extraordinary teacher who introduced his class to The Iliad and The Odyssey. It was an overview only, as we were perhaps still too young to appreciate the finer points of these epic tales. Even so, I was enraptured. I went home, waxed poetic about the tales of battle and voyage to my parents, and the very next day, my father came home from work with two paperbacks, one The Iliad, one The Odyssey. I still have those paperbacks. As he was from Sicily, my uncle (his brother) also suggested I add The Aeneid to my collection. (If you’re familiar with the work, you’ll know it came later, not credited to Homer, instead written by the Italian poet, Virgil.)
Thus began my life-long love of Greek mythology, and all things Greek. In college, I studied Greek Archaeology, Greek Mythology, Ancient Greek Art. And then I met my son’s father, who happened to have been born in Greece, but left there when he was thirteen years old. Foolishly, naively, I placed the entire history of the Hellenes that I loved on the frail young shoulders of that one twenty-three old boy. He too, became a “myth” in my eyes and heart, and I would be a fool still if I bore him any ill will that he could not live up to his ancestry which I had romanticized and mostly still do, to this day.
But.
Fast forward to July 16, 2026, yesterday, when I sat in an IMAX theater (IMAX utilized to its ult), as one of the greatest directors and storytellers of our time presented his version of one of the greatest stories ever written: Christopher Nolan’s THE ODYSSEY.
And with whom was I sitting? A burgeoning director and storyteller himself, the child of that long ago Greek husband and father. A circle, on so many levels unlike any other for me.
Perhaps if you don’t have the emotional connection to these stories I do – I not only read them, books gifted to me by my father, I taught them to my pupils – perhaps if you are a purist, and expect to see a story detailed on the screen as written (which is impossible at this late date in human history, really, as there are translations upon translations, all with the translators putting their own spin, their own preferences, upon the epic), perhaps if your beloved, and if i do say so myself, talented son were not such a disciple of the film arts, you might not experience the depth and breadth of what I experienced yesterday in that theater. A vision, a “soundfest”, a narrative of beauty. The acting unsurpassed, the score by Ludwig Göransson, who used ancient Greek instruments to bless the ears and accompany this celebration for the eyes and imagination. (Göransson also composed the score for Sinners, and that should be no surprise for those who, like I, have a love of music as well as cinema.)
There are voices on the internet with critiques of this film, some of which are petty and annoying, some of which are concerning and bear some scrutiny. I know I will investigate all in my position of privilege, as all in the position of privilege are duty-bound to do.
However.
Just for today, I give myself permission to bask in this glorious cinematic achievement. As a lover of stories, as a storyteller myself, I want to revel in this gift of a story told, as beautiful as storytelling can be.
There is so much I can “discuss” about it: the depiction of all the female characters as three-dimensional and complex, (thank you, Christopher), the comparison of the atrocities of “then” to the atrocities of “now,” the hands-down brilliant performance by John Leguizamo, the images of Clytemnestra as she saw her daughter Iphigenia taken away, and then later, as she got her revenge on that. (As a mother, that stays stamped on my eyeballs, and if you don’t think Lupita earned her place in this ensemble because she’s got black skin, you’re sadly missing the brilliance of this beautiful and gifted actress.) But I guess for me, as a woman who has had it up to the eyeballs with the patriarchy, to be witness to the one and only time an interpretation has made me see Penelope as more than just a simpering ‘tradwife’, a woman (as one of my pupils once said about her) “afraid to break the rules.”
Oh, my gods and goddesses, see it. And just let yourself BE in the moment of “Once upon a time” to the tune of more money than most of us will ever touch in a lifetime. Two hundred and fifty million, spent to tell a human story, not spent to build an AI database that they hope will kill human stories and human imagination forever.
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