What does The Odyssey translator think of Nolan's film?

Emily Wilson, whose 2017 Homer translation inspired Christopher Nolan, told the Associated Press she celebrates renewed awareness of the poem—yet felt Nolan packed everything in while missing essential themes. For fans asking what does the odyssey translator make of the movie, her take is grateful for the buzz and critical of what got left out.

We cannot phone Homer for a review of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. We can, however, ask a living expert whose words helped shape how a new generation reads the epic—and how Hollywood has just remade it.

Emily Wilson, the British-American classicist behind a landmark 2017 English translation of the poem, was one of Nolan's cited inspirations. When the Associated Press asked what she thought of the finished film, her answer was neither a takedown nor a blank check. It was a carefully split verdict: celebration first, then a clear note of disappointment.

That tension—ancient text versus modern blockbuster—belongs firmly in the Nostalgia: Then & Now conversation. Homer has been remixed for millennia. Nolan's film, running just under three hours on that vast IMAX canvas, is simply the latest, loudest remix.

Key Takeaways

• Wilson told the AP she welcomes the surge of public interest in The Odyssey sparked by Nolan's film.
• She also felt Nolan tried to "pack everything in" while missing themes she sees as essential to the poem.
• Nolan has cited Wilson's translation, including the opening line "Tell me about a complicated man."
• The film hits major plot beats—from the Trojan Horse to Calypso—but leaves many myths deliberately untold.
• The Odyssey is now in cinemas, keeping a story reinterpreted for thousands of years in the spotlight.

What did Emily Wilson actually say about the film?

According to reporting from Mashable, which draws on Wilson's comments to the Associated Press, her reaction starts with gratitude.

"I want to celebrate the fact that so many more people are aware of The Odyssey and were brought back to the poem," she told AP.

Then comes the critique that answers the question most readers are googling: she is not fully sold on Nolan's storytelling choices.

"But at the same time, I had the sense that Christopher Nolan was trying to pack everything in while missing themes that were essential to the poem," Wilson said.

In other words, more viewers for Homer is a win. A film that races through set pieces while skimping on the poem's deeper currents is a different story—and she said so plainly.

Why does Wilson's translation matter to Nolan's Odyssey?

Nolan did not invent his "complicated man" from thin air. He has pointed to Wilson's work among his influences, notably her rendering of Homer's famous opening: "Tell me about a complicated man."

Wilson's 2017 version arrived as a cultural event of its own. She is a British-American classicist whose translation pushed modern readers back into a poem often treated as museum glass. Nolan's film borrows some of that energy—even as Wilson herself withholds a full endorsement of the final cut.

That gap is the story. An adaptation can lean on a translator's language and still diverge from what the translator believes the poem is really about.

What does Nolan's film keep—and what does it leave out?

Fitting roughly 12,000 lines of epic poetry into a movie that runs just under three hours is, as Mashable puts it, a herculean task. Nolan still hits the headline beats of the 20-year chronology.

Viewers get the Trojan Horse; Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and her sleazy suitors; Odysseus (Matt Damon) facing the cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin); the sirens; the Scylla monster; and the nymph Calypso (Charlize Theron). Many other myths stay deliberately off-screen.

Wilson's translation is known for reexamining the roles of women in the poem, including figures such as Penelope and Circe. Mashable notes that Nolan's film does give women more agency than much of his earlier work. Critic Belen Edwards has written that Nolan emphasizes the women's complexities and, crucially, "lets them be angry."

Whether that screen-time choice fully answers Wilson's worry about missing essential themes is another matter. Her AP comments suggest spectacle and plot density are not the same as thematic fidelity.

Why does a scholar's mixed review still matter now?

Adaptations of The Odyssey have rolled through literature, art, film, video games, and every other medium for thousands of years. Scholarly pushback is part of that tradition, not a spoiler alert.

Wilson's split take—cheer the audience, question the frame—gives casual viewers a useful map. You can love the IMAX waves and still ask whether the film honors the poem's central ideas. You can also treat the movie as a gateway and then return to the page, which is exactly the outcome Wilson says she wants to celebrate.

As for Homer's own scorecard? Mashable's Shannon Connellan puts it bluntly: nobody can know, so stop pretending to speak for an ancient Greek poet on social media. The film is in cinemas. The poem is still there when the credits roll.

That is the then-and-now loop in one frame: a classicist who made Homer readable for the 21st century watching a blockbuster director turn the same story into a global event—and refusing to confuse cultural heat with a perfect translation of meaning.