Emily Wilson, the acclaimed translator whose version of Homer’s The Odyssey inspired Christopher Nolan’s blockbuster adaptation, has delivered a scathing review of the film, saying she “would be ashamed to have written any part of its script” and describing its writing as “abysmal”.Wilson argued in a review for the London Review of Books that Nolan’s film strips away much of what has made Homer’s epic endure for nearly 3,000 years.“It has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war, or about the relationship between one warrior’s glorious return and the lives of his family, adversaries, comrades, friends and neighbours. It lacks psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth,” she wrote. Released earlier this month, The Odyssey is Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, following Odysseus’ perilous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.Matt Damon stars as the king of Ithaca, with Anne Hathaway as his wife Penelope and Tom Holland as their son Telemachus. The ensemble cast also includes Zendaya as the goddess Athena, Charlize Theron as the nymph Calypso, Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous and Himesh Patel as Odysseus’ second-in-command, Eurylochus.The film has received rave reviews and is expected to be a major Oscar contender, with The Independent’s Clarisse Loughrey calling The Odyssey Nolan’s “best film to date” in her five-star review.Released earlier this month, The Odyssey is Nolan’s adaptation of Homer’s ancient Greek epic, following Odysseus’ perilous journey home to Ithaca after the Trojan War (Universal Pictures)Wilson, who became the first woman to publish a complete English translation of The Odyssey in 2017, had previously been named by Nolan as an influence on the film. In an interview with Empire magazine in November 2025, the director said it was the opening line of Wilson's translation – “Tell me about a complicated man” – that unlocked his approach to Odysseus. Watch Apple TV+ free for 7 dayNew subscribers only. £9.99/mo. after free trial. Plan auto-renews until cancelled.Try for freeADVERTISEMENT. If you sign up to this service we will earn commission. This revenue helps to fund journalism across The Independent.“The genius of the character, the cleverness, the inventiveness of him, that was a huge part of what interested me. He’s not just a soldier. He’s an amazing strategist, a very wily person,” he said.Wilson seized on that in her review, writing: “As they say at the awards shows, I was humbled to learn that Nolan has read at least the first line of my translation of The Odyssey into iambic pentameter. But I would be ashamed to have written any part of this script.”She argued that Nolan’s version loses the complexity that defines Homer’s hero, writing that Matt Damon’s Odysseus “isn’t complicated or wily or artful” but is instead driven largely by “anxiety and guilt”.Wilson then goes on to say that the film’s “vision is too confused” and its “characters too underdeveloped”. “Its narrative structure is gimmicky. The writing is abysmal. None of the characters has convincing motivation for their actions or words. There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible,” she wrote. Wilson writes that Anne Hathaway’s Penelope is given ‘nothing to do except yearn for Matt Damon, for reasons unknown’ (Universal Pictures)Wilson also argued that several of the poem’s women lose much of their complexity in Nolan’s adaptation.“I had hoped that Nolan’s affinity with these Homeric themes might push him to new creative heights, and enable him to conjure more believable characters.”Theron’s Calypso, she wrote, is transformed into “an unpaid therapist” soothing a PTSD-ridden Odysseus instead of the powerful and rhetorically gifted goddess of Homer’s poem. In the poem, Calypso keeps Odysseus captive on the island of Ogygia for seven years, offering him immortality if he stays with her, before releasing him only after Zeus orders her to let him go.Hathaway’s Penelope, meanwhile, is given “nothing to do except yearn for Matt Damon, for reasons unknown”, despite being one of the epic’s most psychologically rich characters. Zendaya’s Athena fares little better, Wilson argued, becoming “a vulnerable victim of war, or perhaps a projection of Odysseus’ conscience” instead of the calculating war goddess who shapes much of the original narrative. Jimmy Gonzales as Cepheus, Matt Damon as Odysseus, and Himesh Patel as Eurylochus in The Odyssey (Universal Pictures)She also took aim at the film’s race-neutral casting, arguing that it ultimately reinforced familiar Hollywood stereotypes rather than subverting them. “There is nothing progressive about it,” she wrote. “Most of the non-white actors – Zendaya, Lupita Nyong’o, Himesh Patel, Corey Antonio Hawkins, Travis Scott – play versions of the Black best friend, whose only role in the drama is to provide aid to the white protagonist.” Wilson also questioned the production's decision to film scenes near Dakhla in Western Sahara, a disputed territory that has been under Moroccan control since 1975 and is regarded by the UN as a non-self-governing territory. Production footage and location reports confirmed that The Odyssey shot scenes there in July 2025, prompting criticism from Sahrawi groups and organisers of the FiSahara film festival, who argued that filming in the occupied territory without the consent of the Sahrawi people risked legitimising Morocco’s occupation.In her review, she described the decision as “the most troubling ethical problem with Nolan's Odyssey”, arguing that it risked “normalising the ongoing violence against the indigenous Sahrawi people”. Even so, Wilson stopped short of dismissing the film outright. She called it “an entertaining way to hide from the high temperatures for a few hours” and praised Nolan’s use of the poem’s layered narrative structure, writing that his trademark jumps through time were “appropriate for The Odyssey”. Wilson wrote that Nolan ‘is doing his best to get the general public reading again, and I am grateful’ (PA)The Odyssey is screening in theatres now.