The Odyssey is the latest film from The Dark Knight director Christopher Nolan, and it’s gearing up to be one of the biggest movies of the year. It’s an adaptation of Homer’s epic poem about the Greek king Odysseus (Matt Damon) making his way home to Ithaca after the Trojan War.
As you might expect for a story that’s over two thousand years old, The Odyssey has been adapted for the screen many times over the years. But sometimes, the adaptation is so subtle you may not have even realized it was an adaptation.
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O Brother, Where Art Thou? (2000)
Let’s start with the obvious
O Brother, Where Art Thou? is one of the best known alternative adaptations of The Odyssey out there. It’s about a prisoner named Ulysses, played by George Clooney (“Ulysses” is a Latinized version of “Odysseus”), who escapes and tries to make his way home to his wife Penny (Holly Hunter), who stands in for Odysseus’ wife Penelope. Along the way, they encounter washer women who seduce them into forgetfulness with their voices, clearly an analog for Odysseus’ encounter with the Sirens. John Goodman plays a mugger with an eyepatch, a clear reference to the Cyclops who gives Odysseus so much trouble in The Odyssey. King Menelaus from The Odysseus becomes Menelaus “Pappy” O’Daniel, the governor of Mississippi (Charles Durning). The parallels are pretty clear.
O Brother, Where Art Thou? takes a lighter approach to the material, although it’s not as much of a pure comedy as the next entry on our list:
- Release Date
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September 15, 2000
- Runtime
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107 minutes
- Director
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Joel Coen, Ethan Coen
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John Turturro
Pete Hogwallop
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Tim Blake Nelson
Delmar O’Donnell
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John Goodman
Big Dan Teague
The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie (2004)
And continue with the surprising
The SpongebBob SquarePants Movie has a lot of surprisingly direct references to The Odyssey. Poseidon, the god of the sea who is behind so much of Odysseus’s troubles in Homer’s poem, is replaced by King Neptune, who charges SpongeBob with retrieving his crown. Neptune’s daughter Princess Mindy helps SpongeBob and his friend Patrick just as Athena helps Odysseus. At one point, SpongeBob and Patrick are captured by a diver wearing an old-fashioned diving suit with one giant window on his helmet; he’s called the Cyclops. At another, Princess Mindy gives SpongeBob a bag of winds to help him get home to Bikini Bottom, but Patrick opens it early and wastes it. In The Odyssey, the god Aeolus a bag of winds to help him get home to Ithaca, but his crew members open it early and waste it.
And of course, when SpongeBob and Patrick get home to Bikini Bottom, they find it’s been taken over by the villainous Plankton, just as Odysseus gets home to find his house overrun with unruly suitors. It’s all there.
- Release Date
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November 19, 2004
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Tom Kenny
SpongeBob / Narrator / Gary / Various
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Rodger Bumpass
Squidward / Fish #4
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Bill Fagerbakke
Patrick Star / Fish #2 / Chum Customer / Local Fish
Cold Mountain (2003)
What if The Odyssey but the American Civil War?
Clearly there was something in the air in the early 2000s that made everyone want to produce veiled adaptations of The Odyssey. Based on Charles Frazier’s 1997 novel of the same name, Cold Mountain is about a Confederate soldier named William Inman (Jude Law) who deserts the war effort in order to make his way home to his bride Ada (Nicole Kidman), who works the family farm in his absence and deals with the advances of the covetous Captain Teague (Ray Winstone).
Cold Mountain isn’t as explicit with its parallels as O Brother, Where Art Thou or even The Spongebob SquarePants Movie, but it’s pretty easy to draw comparisons between Law’s character and Odysseys, Ada and Penelope, and Teague and the suitors who besiege Penelope in Odysseus’ absence. Like Odysseus, William is beset with challenges on his way home, with the Union army and the Confederate Home Guard taking the place of Poseidon’s wrath. When he finally gets there, he kills Teague as Odysseus kills the suitors, although the ending of Cold Mountain is more tragic than the ending of The Odyssey.
Beyond The Odyssey parallels, Cold Mountain is a sweeping period melodrama with splendid performances from the likes of Renée Zellweger, who got an Oscar nomination for playing farmer Ruby Thewes.
- Release Date
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December 24, 2003
- Runtime
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153 minutes
- Director
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Anthony Minghella
- Writers
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Charles Frazier, Anthony Minghella
Beau Is Afraid
Beau is Odysseus?
Beau Is Afraid is a very weird movie from writer/director Ari Astor, the man films like Hereditary, Midsommar, and Eddington. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as our Odysseus analog Beau, an anxiety-riddled middle-aged man who goes on a perilous journey to get to his mother’s house for her funeral after she dies. He spends time with a married couple who insist he rest after a harrowing series of events, an analog for Odysseus’ stay on the Island of the Lotus-Eaters. He encounters a group of wandering minstrels who evoke the Sirens from The Odyssey as well as the people in the Land of the Dead. There’s even a character named Penelope.
As with Cold Mountain, the ending of Beau is Afraid is much more grim than the ending of The Odyssey, and infinitely more strange. We’re getting very abstract with our adaptations choices now, but we can go further.
- Release Date
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April 14, 2023
- Runtime
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179 minutes
- Director
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Ari Aster
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Joaquin Phoenix
Beau Wassermann
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Patti LuPone
Mona Wassermann
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Keyhole (2011)
What if The Odyssey but in a house?
Keyhole is about a gangster named Ulysses Pick (of course), played by Jason Patric, who travels through his haunted, crumbling mansion in order to reach his wife Hyacinth (Isabella Rossellini) in the master bedroom. Each room is an obstacle that brings him face to face with his painful past. The barrier between death, life, and memory is very thin, as characters move in and out of reality as Ulysses slowly goes on his own personal odyssey without ever leaving his house.
Keyhole is an even looser, more surreal adaptation of The Odyssey than Beau Is Afraid, although there are direct parallels. The movie is narrated by Hyacinth’s late father Calypso (Louis Negin), who shares the name of the nymph who holds Odysseus captive in The Odyssey. The Cyclops makes an appearance, although not one you should watch with children around.
- Release Date
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February 22, 2012
- Runtime
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94 Minutes
- Director
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Guy Maddin
- Writers
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Georges Toles, Guy Maddin
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Jason Patric
Ulysses Pick
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Isabella Rossellini
Hyacinth
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The Warriors (1979)
Close enough
The Warriors is a 1979 cult classic about a New York City gang who have to fight their way through hostile territory in order to make it home to Coney Island. It is not based on The Odyssey…but it is based on a different Greek work of literature penned thousands of years ago, in this case Anabasis by the soldier and writer Xenophon, who recounted the journey of a group of Greek mercenaries fighting to get home through hostile Persian territory.
When thinking of ancient texts to make over for modern audiences, why limit yourself to The Odyssey?
- Release Date
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February 9, 1979
- Runtime
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94 minutes
- Director
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Walter Hill
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-
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David Patrick Kelly
Luther
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The literal route
The Odyssey will open in theaters on Friday, July 17. In the meantime, you’re always free to watch one of the adaptations of The Odyssey that actually admits it’s an adaptation of The Odyssey. Or if you’re not interested in the tale at all, there’s another major cinematic event coming at the end of the year.