The Odyssey Scholar Doubles Down On Christopher Nolan's Film After Scathing Review

Daniel WelshThu, August 6, 2026 at 8:31 AM UTC

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Melinda Sue Gordon

The Odyssey translator Emily Wilson, whose 2017 translation of the Ancient Greek text served as a major inspiration for Christopher Nolan’s recent adaptation, is once again taking aim at the film.

Last month, Wilson made headlines when she branded the screenplay Nolan’s star-studded movie – which received widespread praise from critics – “abysmal”, claiming she’d have been “ashamed” to have “written any part of this script” in a damning piece in the London Review Of Books.

After sparking debate, she has now penned a second piece, this time for The Atlantic, once again slating the Oscar winner’s latest work.

She claimed that, while Nolan’s film is “visually stunning”, the script is “emotionally empty”.

“The script grandly insists on the importance of human kindness, while the camera shows us an entirely different set of values,” she claimed..

“In these times of hatred and misinformation, we need more than the ‘apparent magic’ of deceptive images. We need art that is truthful about the costs and the necessity of compassion, and that recognises that a sense of spiritual superiority may not protect us from lies.”

Universal Pictures

She also claimed that Nolan’s Odyssey “is not interested in the social or psychological questions of how people deceive and are deceived”, instead claiming that his direction is more focussed on “logistics”.

“The script tells us loudly that people matter, but the camera shows us that what matters is the mechanical challenge of moving objects through space,” Wilson added.

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Wilson is a classical studies professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Her work includes a popular translation of Homer’s The Odyssey, published in 2017, which Nolan has stated helped him when putting together his own take on the classic tome.

In her original assessment of the film, she wasn’t totally scathing, saying she was “humbled” that Nolan had used her work to help him adapt it, calling its release a “an event to celebrate” and praising the filmmaker for “doing his best to get the general public reading again”.

Ultimately, though, she compared Nolan’s Odyssey to “an elaborate Fourth of July fireworks display – and with about the same level of narrative and emotional depth”.

While Nolan has not responded to this particular criticism, he has previously jumped to his film’s defence after questions around its supposed historical accuracy.

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Source: “AOL Entertainment”