The Sun We Cannot Catch: Distance, Disguise, and Homecoming in Nolan’s Odyssey
(By Paul Scott Grill/ Film Review) The more I think about this ‘distance’ in “The Odyssey,” the more I sense it is exactly as the movie should have felt. Having never read Homer’s epic (Be kind… I didn’t discover books till I was in my teens, then started working and raising a family at 20), I only knew the broad outlines of the story, as picked up from cultural references. Throughout the first two acts of the film, I felt a growing frustration with the evident scope and scale of the voyage, for it seemed interminably coupled to a lack of development for the character of Odysseus.
I wanted not just grand. I wanted close.
However, as I’ve reflected on the movie, I realize that it finally came alive for me in the third act, when he returns to Ithaca in disguise. That is when, ironically, the disguise falls away. More striking is that it is preceded by his baptism in the sea. Up till then, Odysseus is a man willingly fleeing the tide, harried by the gods, but adrift from himself. Whether this is a modern rendering of the man or true to the original or somewhere in between, I must leave to others to speak to, but taken on its own terms, I see more clearly why the film is structured the way it is.
For is this not how so many of us live until we’re willing to come home?
Given the nature of my own work, I’m ashamed I didn’t see it sooner, though in my defense, there were some distractions. The modern language really is a disservice to this adaptation. I don’t expect the King’s English here, but it would not have taken much to raise the dialogue from its flat expositional style into something more immersive. Every time I almost escaped into the story, some bland line would yank me back. The varied, ahistorical cast never really struck me as subversive as much as it struck me as distracting. The acting is fine, in a sort of ‘star-studded cast’ way, but in almost every scene I felt like I was watching a random troupe who just happened to be assigned these roles. I wanted to fall into this world, yet these choices seemed determined to keep me conscious of the fact that it was just a facade, and for something this ambitious, that is a shame.
Nevertheless, the third act is fire, and while I think the melee against the suitors might have benefited from better choreography and a tighter edit, when the usurpers begin bowing to the unkillable father, it is filmmaking gold. The bending of the bow, the twang of the string, the look upon Penelope’s face… just glorious.
I kept thinking of this verse, and others like it.
“The LORD your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)
Which brings me to this question of what Nolan might be trying to say at the end. What does it mean that the sun remains out of reach, ever pursued by a reunited yet wearied couple? What assurances do they have that their son will not suffer the vengeance of the suitors’ families? What hope does Odysseus actually have that things have been set to right and that Ithaca can be rebuilt? I’m not sure any answer is given except the rising, dipping bow of hope on a sea of guilt and loss.
We are spared, but for how long?
It’s a theme Nolan returns to again and again: the choices we make, the scars we take (and give) cannot be walked back. It’s admirable in one sense to face the consequences, and I think for men like Odysseus (perhaps for many of us), a subdued faith is the best we can muster in light of who we’ve been. This distance, though, need not stall the joy of forgiveness. However wounded we may be, healing remains real. Indeed, on our own we may never catch the sun…
That does not mean the sun cannot reach for us.
Paul Scott Grill, Christian, father, husband, and author of Travel By Star.
Connect with him on X at @plainrunner2.
