When Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey was announced last year under a tagline promising to "defy the gods," I confess the phrase gave me pause. Homer's poem does not celebrate defiance; it tells the story of a man who breaks a sacred law and spends the rest of his life answering for it, and I wondered whether Hollywood would honor that law or overturn it.

I am pleased to report that the British auteur has done more than resist that temptation; he has delivered an epic that treats the metaphysical with moral seriousness, and honors the ruinous cost of crossing the divine.

The ...

Continue reading this article with an NRPLUS subscription.

All the access, half the price: join NRPLUS for $5/month

subscribe now