Given that The Odyssey takes place over the course of twenty years, it is fitting that its runtime is nearly three hours.  It should also be pointed out that it is directed by Christopher Nolan.  To everyone’s enjoyment, save for me, he loves to play with time.  I prefer more linear plots, but he has a different view.  2 Peter 3:8 says, “. . . with the Lord one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years like one day.”  That is great for the Divine, and the director, but my tiny human brain needs something more understandable.  Luckily, Nolan tones things down a little here, and the result is something poignant and appropriate for its length.

Speaking of appropriate, since The Odyssey is a story that has been passed down through the generations, it is right that we begin with a bard (Travis Scott) telling of the exploits of the wise king of Ithaca, Odysseus (Matt Damon), during the Trojan War.  It is a tale well known to its hearers, many of whom are there vying for the hand of his queen, Penelope (Anne Hathaway).  They are pressuring her to remarry so that the long vacant throne can once again be occupied.  This is being done despite there being no proof that Odysseus is alive or dead.  Among those holding out hope of his return, aside from Penelope, is his son, Telemachus (Tom Holland), and an old companion of Odysseus, the mostly blind Eumaeus (John Leguizamo).  The main claimants to become Penelope’s new husband are Antinous (Robert Pattinson) and Polybus (Corey Hawkins).  There is a lot of pressure on Penelope and Telemachus, and the son wishes to do something in order to clear up the mystery of the king’s whereabouts.  Penelope is afraid that if he departs, there will be no one left to stand in the way of usurping the crown, but he sneaks off to Sparta anyway.  Once there, he meets King Menelaus (Jon Bernthal), ruler of the Spartans, who had fought with Odysseus at Troy.  At this point, I have to add the caveat that I am not following the progression of the plot.  Instead, I am presenting it in what I think is the most logical order for this synopsis.  I say this because it is with Menelaus that Telemachus gets the story of what occurred in front of Troy.  After answering the call of King Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) of Mycenae to assemble the Greeks for war against the Trojans, who had stolen his brother’s, Menelaus, wife Helen (Lupita Nyong’o), Odysseus had done his part and raised an army.  Before departing, Penelope had pointed out to Odysseus the madness of the endeavor, suggesting that they ignore it and sail away to the west.  He does not hate this idea, but feels duty bound to go.  The result is ten years of fruitless combat that gets them nowhere.  It is Odysseus who comes up with the famous trick to break the deadlock with the construction of the Trojan Horse.  Leaving Sinon (Elliot Page), the soldier who had replaced his brother, Antinous, to proclaim it a gift to Athena (Zendaya), Menelaus, Odysseus, and a number of other Greeks hide inside the wooden offering and wait for nightfall.  The result is a catastrophe for the Trojans, with Odysseus opening the gates and the rest of the Greeks pouring in to rape, pillage, and destroy.  However, Menelaus is keen to emphasize how above reproach is Odysseus, which reassures Telemachus.  Still, where is the Ithacan king?  In between all these vignettes, we see that Odysseus has been under the spell of Calypso (Charlize Theron), who has spent seven years making him forget what happened to him and his men once they sailed away from Troy’s shores.  Yet, with some help from Athena, Odysseus begins to lift the fog of his fate and remembers.  Seeing that there is no stopping him now, Calypso encourages the process, and with this we witness the rest of the tale unfold.  While I am not going to describe every stop along the way, the first thing to know is that Odysseus decides not to go with the rest of the Greek fleet home.  In the off chance that they might pick up trade winds, they follow an alternative route that, he reasons, could show them much of the rest of the world along the way.  Unfortunately, it is not too long before they go off course and the men begin to grow leery of his leadership.  It becomes a quest for supplies that has them tangling with cyclops, giants, and other mythical creatures.  At one point, they come across the hut of Circe (Samantha Morton), a demigod witch who turns part of Odysseus’ crew into pigs.  In confronting her, Odysseus claims to simply want to get his men home.  To do so, they must sail to Hades and consult the seer Tiresias (James Remar).  Tiresias prophesizes to Odysseus that the ruler of Ithaca will return to his kingdom, but that all his companions will die.  Odysseus protests that he will keep them alive, but they end up doing everything Tiresias predicts despite the warnings.  This is how Odysseus comes to be washed up on Calypso’s shore.  Now that he is ready to go home, he puts to sea and drifts to Ithaca.  He gets there in time to travel to save Telemachus from assassination.  All the same, Odysseus chooses not to reveal his identity immediately, although Telemachus soon figures out that the man posing as a beggar is his dad.  While they manage to keep it secret from Penelope, father and son conceive a plan to deal with the plotting suitors.  Following an undercover consultation with his wife in which Odysseus confesses to all the bad things he has done, Penelope announces that she will choose a husband.  The next day, they are all locked into the palace and told they must string a bow that only the long-lost king could do.  It is when he steps forward to bend the weapon properly that Odysseus’ identity is revealed.  With some help from Telemachus, Odysseus proceeds to kill his rivals, saving Antinous for last.

Actually, the last scene in The Odyssey is a wounded but still breathing Odysseus fulfilling a promise he made to Tiresias to sail west and make a sacrifice in atonement for all the men he had lost while on campaign and in the journey home.  There are Christian echoes to this in Jesus’ passion, but that is a familiar trope.  Instead, what I would like to also relate this to is how there is a slow build-up to this point, and many other points, throughout the film.  That it takes so long for a set-up to be paid off is countercultural since we are a society that demands immediate results.  This only underscores the need for Faith.  A relationship with God is a long term act whose rewards are only truly fulfilled by eternity with Him in Heaven.  Our actions during our own earthly odysseys determine how we spend that afterlife.  In this way, Odysseus has much to learn from the dead, which has a Catholic equivalent in the saints.  Those holy men and women who went before us left us the examples of their lives in order for us to be like them.  Doing so is also a lifelong endeavor.  There are also items that we can wear in order to remind us of the importance of staying on that narrow path.  Significantly, I saw the film on the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel.  In the thirteenth century, the Virgin Mary appeared there to St. Simon Stock and gave him the brown scapular.  It is an item I wear, a devotion that includes saying the Rosary daily, and on one of the faces it reads, “Whosoever dies wearing this Scapular shall not suffer eternal fire.”  That, too, is preparing for something in the distant future.  For Odysseus, it is a figure of Athena given him by Penelope, which he eventually hands back to her when he has defeated the suitors.

The killing of those suitors in The Odyssey’s climactic scene is a further reason why Odysseus must atone for his sins in the end.  While I appreciate the way the film built to this point and others, there is a moment of even greater Catholic value.  It is when Odysseus finally knows he is ready to go home and puts out to sea on a raft.  Part of this is at Calypso’s direction, who tells him that he must surrender himself to the sea.  Surrender is the operative word.  The film suggests that he had spent twenty years defying the gods, whether as part of the invasion force that leveled Troy and committed atrocities there, or in his quest to save his men from the fate ordained by the powers-that-be.  Just to get this part out of the way, Catholicism does not believe in fate.  What we have is free will.  Yet, it is how we use that free will that is important.  God has a plan for us, as do the lesser beings in the movie, and the more we cooperate with the Almighty, the better it goes for us.  Please understand that this is not an endorsement of the prosperity gospel, or any other kind of notion that says following God will equate to worldly success.  Every one of Odysseus’ crew members believed in their gods and died as a result of their actions.  Rather, God invites us to worship Him.  He does not make us do anything, but accepting His invitation is everything.  In this sense, it is poetic that Odysseus giving himself over to his fate on the sea is what leads him home.  Jesus tells His disciples many times that He goes before us to prepare a home for us in His Father’s house in Heaven.  Again, the only way to get there is through submission to His teachings.  This also involves being a good person, which is consistently referred to throughout as following Zeus’ law.  It is the Golden Rule, basically speaking.  Much of what Odysseus sees happening around him is against that law, which can also be construed as another metaphor for needing to allow God’s will to work in us.  We are not the center of the world, and by the end, Odysseus addresses this fact by dressing as a beggar.

I am not going to beg you to see The Odyssey, but it is not a bad idea if you can get over its length.  It will feel that long, but as I have discussed, it works better here than in other Nolan films.  It is also probably best on the big screen, though, so take that as a recommendation.