Wilson Doubles Down: Nolan's Odyssey Is 'Emotionally Empty'
Get the Culture newsletter
Daily culture — film, music, books, the trends and ideas worth your attention. Free.
- Emily Wilson doubled down on her criticism of Nolan's "The Odyssey" in an Atlantic op-ed, calling the film "emotionally empty" after previously branding the screenplay "abysmal" in a London Review of Books review.
- Wilson argued the Trojan Horse sequence is narratively muddled, contending that Nolan frames the horse as the ultimate violation of Zeus' hospitality law while ignoring that the Greeks had already besieged Troy for a decade—making the Trojans enemies, not hosts.
- Wilson wrote that Nolan's camera focuses on "the mechanical challenge of moving objects through space" rather than on human actors, creating a dissonance between the script's insistence on human kindness and the film's visual storytelling.
- Nolan's "The Odyssey" has earned $405 million domestically and $922 million worldwide through three weeks of release and holds an "A" CinemaScore, indicating audiences have not echoed Wilson's dissatisfaction.
- Wilson originally wrote that the film "has nothing convincing to say about time, memory, history, war" and lacks "psychological, emotional, political and ethical depth."
- Joyce Carol Oates attacked Wilson on X, accusing her of speaking "in the crude language of MAGA folks" and saying a translator should be "more thoughtful & respectful of others acting in good faith."
Why it matters: Wilson's public break with Nolan—who cited her 2017 translation as an influence on the adaptation—highlights a sharp divide between elite literary criticism and blockbuster reception: the film has surpassed $922 million worldwide despite her calling it "emotionally empty." For Wilson, a University of Pennsylvania classical studies professor, the op-ed cements her public profile as a translator willing to challenge a filmmaker she helped shape, while Nolan's commercial results insulate the adaptation from intellectual rebuke.
