All of life is a coming home. Salesmen, secretaries, coal miners, beekeepers, sword swallowers, all of us. All the restless hearts of the world, all trying to find a way home. It’s hard to describe what I felt like then. Picture yourself walking for days in the driving snow; you don’t even know you’re walking in circles. The heaviness of your legs in the drifts, your shouts disappearing into the wind. How small you can feel, and how far away home can be. Home. The dictionary defines it as both a place of origin and a goal or destination. And the storm? The storm was all in my mind.
You will hear late Robbin Williams say these opening lines in the film Patch Adams. These lines pretty much say everything there is to be said about the human need to return home and what home means to anyone who has wandered off. Anyone who has been away for a significant time will understand this instinctively. Those who have never left their home will find it a tad difficult to grasp. Emotions and human needs are such, one can attempt to understand them by reading or listening to someone else’s experiences, but unless one goes through pain, loss or longing, one cannot truly understand the depths of desire human mind is capable off. It so happens that this reminds me of another set of lines delivered by the great Robbin Williams, from the film Good Will Hunting, they read;
SEAN: I was thinking about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. I stayed up half the night thinking about it and then something occurred to me and I fell into a deep peaceful sleep and haven’t thought about you since. You know what occurred to me?
WILL: No.
SEAN: You’re just a boy. You don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.
WILL: Why thank you.
SEAN: You’ve never been out of Boston.
WILL: No.
SEAN: So, if I asked you about art, you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written…Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life’s work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked you about women, I’m sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and maybe you’ve been laid a few times too. But you couldn’t tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy. If I asked you about war, you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material, but you’ve never been in one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love I’d get a sonnet, but you’ve never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable. Known that someone could kill you with a look. That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you. And you wouldn’t know how it felt to be her angel. To have the love be there for her forever. Through anything, through cancer. You wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term “visiting hours” didn’t apply to you. And you wouldn’t know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you’ve never dared to love anything that much. I look at you and I don’t see an intelligent confident man, I don’t see a peer, and I don’t see my equal. I see a boy.
It is funny that Will played by Matt Damon way back in 1997 has still not learned anything. He is still the freakingly intelligent boy who has probably read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, who has probably had hours of intense discussion with Nolan about what it means to be at war for ten years and at wandering the seas for another ten years but has absolutely no grasp of what longing is, what it feels to be away, what the intense desire to return home feels like. Of course it’s not just Damon, he happens to be the face, it’s Christopher Nolan who clearly lacks here, if not in experience, in will.
The Odyssey is Christopher Nolan’s laziest, insincere and worst work and marks the absolute trough of his cinematic journey. The only good thing one can hope is having hit the absolute lowest of depths, Nolan will rise, if only he is sincere about it and overcomes the mediocrity that has engulfed his mind, possibly because of the people surrounding him. He may rise if he discards the shackles that studios and businesses in general so firmly apply to the artist’s imagination. He may rise if he allows the honest storyteller that he seems to have buried deep down to rebel against the businessman overpowering his brain. For now, this is as bad as it can get.
I am not going to give a detailed explanation as to why the film is bad. Just do this small exercise for yourself, pick any film (Nolan or any other maker) from a few years ago, older if you can, which you absolutely loved and recall it. If it was good, you will recall the scenes, the lines, the expressions, the action, the music, everything. If the film had truly moved you back then, it will playback in your mind today just as effectively. For me, an all-out commercial film like the Terminator or a seemingly silly entertainer like Bruce Almighty or Nolan’s The Dark Knight plays back and brings out emotions that I felt the first time I experienced it. The Odyssey is very recent and I know and challenge you to recall it, maybe you can, but if you insist, try and recall anything from Oppenheimer, you won’t. You don’t have to argue with me, just be true to yourself. You will remember time ticking on Miller’s planet, you will remember what Joker says, you will remember the dark truth hidden behind his insanity, you will remember Bane’s plain speak, the fear it invokes the possibility of an impending civil war. You will remember all of that because those emotions ring true deep inside your heart.
None of that happens with The Odyssey.
What hurts me is the resources Nolan has at his disposal. The budget, the equipment, the access to the world’s best talent and more than that the right to adopt a piece of literature that transcends time. And what he delivers? Absolute garbage. I don’t wish to get into the politics of the casting; it’s a disgusting topic which needs no attention. Firoz Khan played Arjun and for me and for millions I know, he still remains the absolute benchmark after nearly four decades since Mahabharat first released. So no, the race and religion or sexual orientation of the artists does not matter as long as the person is sincere and the casting is honest. It also does not matter whether Nolan opts IMAX or digital or any other camera format. It doesn’t matter if he uses VFX or does miniature sets or choreographs real stunts. All these technicalities aid the storytelling; they cannot and do not supersede the narrative.
The fact that the retelling is weak renders the so-called technical superiority useless. A three-minute short film made by a student on his smart phone may end up affecting you deeply if it has honest intentions. That is what hurts and angers me, Nolan’s disregard, as if he takes the audience for granted. Possibly because he knows that even if he dishes out mediocre artwork, blind followers will make a beeline, much like they do for a Coldplay concert. Ask them to sing one song or tune and most won’t recall a thing. Furthermore, it is defended by attributing it to the experience of being there more than the music. Shallow.
Blowing my trumpet, I admit, but I read excerpts (translated of course), read commentary on what makes Homer’s literature great and did my tiny attempt to understand a piece of work which felt alien to my sensibilities and like I have mentioned before, after attempting to understand, it didn’t feel that distant. The craving to be back home, to be accepted by those who you call family, resonated deeply. I prepared myself to be as neutral as possible to experience what Nolan had to offer only to be disappointed.
So that’s my rant. I refuse to accept that it’s a masterpiece. It is not and I refuse to toe the line with those who say it is brilliant without articulating why they feel so. I don’t care about the magazine reviews, that they have their bias is plenty clear. I care about people around me who find this amazing. How? Why? Recall, replay the film (if you can) in your mind and tell me, why?
Update 28.07.2026: How did I forget that the film I mentioned earlier, Bruce Almighty had Morgan Freeman playing God and no one objected. For the simple reason that he is an amazing artist and a lovely person who does full justice to the role.
Aisle Seat Stories 