The Story in Brief
Odysseus, king of Ithaca and hero of the Trojan War, has been trying to get home for ten years. Gods obstruct him, monsters devour his crew, enchantresses delay him, and the sea keeps finding new ways to say no. Meanwhile, his wife Penelope holds off a houseful of suitors who have assumed he's dead and are competing to replace him, and his son Telemachus sets out to find news of a father he barely remembers. Homer's poem — composed around 800 BC and read continuously ever since — is the foundational story of the journey home. Nolan brings his full post-Oppenheimer ambition to it, with Matt Damon as Odysseus, Tom Holland as Telemachus, and Zendaya in a role not yet confirmed.
Key Differences
The epic similes
Homer's text is structured around long, digressive comparisons — moments of violence or beauty that pause the narrative to compare what's happening to something from ordinary life: a farmer cutting wheat, a lion dragging a calf, women weeping at a harbour. These similes are the heartbeat of the poem and they exist entirely outside what cinema can do. Nolan will find visual equivalents, but the simile is a literary technology with no film equivalent.
The non-linear structure
The Odyssey begins ten years into the journey, with Odysseus already stranded on Calypso's island. The famous wanderings — Cyclops, Sirens, Circe, the Underworld — are told in flashback by Odysseus himself at a dinner party. Homer invented the structure Nolan has made his signature. This is the adaptation where Nolan's instincts and his source material are in genuine alignment rather than in tension.
Penelope's role
Homer's Penelope is cunning and patient — she unravels her weaving each night to stall the suitors, and her final test of the bow is a masterpiece of strategic delay. But the poem is primarily Odysseus's story; her interiority is largely implied. Nolan is reportedly expanding Penelope significantly, which is the right call for a 2026 film and may actually deepen the story.
The gods
Homer's gods are anthropomorphic, petty, and fully present — Athena disguises herself and walks among mortals, Poseidon nurses a grudge, Zeus adjudicates. They are characters. Nolan handles divinity with more ambiguity, presenting divine intervention in ways that can be read as supernatural or psychological. It's a defensible modern choice that changes the story's moral architecture.
The Phaeacian episode
In the poem, Odysseus spends several books as the guest of the Phaeacians — a civilised, seafaring people who treat him with extraordinary hospitality while he tells them his story. It's the structural hinge of the whole poem. Nolan compresses this significantly, which means losing some of the poem's meditation on what hospitality means and what stories are for.
Should You Read First?
Yes — but start with a modern translation. Emily Wilson's 2017 version is the most readable and the most honest to Homer's actual register: direct, swift, occasionally brutal. Robert Fagles's 1996 translation is the stronger second choice if you want something more elevated. Either will give you the poem in a form that feels urgent rather than academic. Nolan's film will inevitably interpret the myth in ways that close off some imaginative possibilities. Read Homer first and keep those visions intact.
Two great works that illuminate each other without replacing each other. Homer's Odyssey is literature's oldest adventure story and remains irreplaceable. Nolan's film is a worthy heir — ambitious, visually extraordinary, and genuinely moved by its source. Read the poem. See the film. In whichever order you like, though the poem first is better.