By Sophia Madeb, Arts and Culture Editor
On the outside, one’s accomplishments can be viewed by everyone else as great. People will see their successes as groundbreaking, praising their revolutionary innovations in technology and the different inventions, plans and designs they have created for our world. They can be seen as unique, creating skills that allow for more efficient ways to complete daily tasks. One’s inventions and creations can go down in history books to be studied, practiced and understood, with others aiming to follow in their footsteps because of their once unparalleled abilities in their field.
As their success fills space and time, parsing and parading their glory, it can be the person’s biggest failure deep down in their present life. Their doings might have changed the course of time for the future, but it is no gift for their present state. In this way, as their outward success is being celebrated, I couldn’t help but wonder if it is truly their shameful demise.
This complex dichotomy came to me while watching Christopher Nolan’s new film, The Odyssey, released on July 17, 2026, breaking the box office and capturing the light that every story holds an array of different perspectives between outward success and internal failure.
To first understand these two opposing perspectives in The Odyssey, one must come to know the premise of the film, which is based on a story written by Homer, an author seen as great for building a parallel world following a man who also holds a similar token of greatness named Odysseus. In the film, Odysseus partly retells his twenty-year journey while coming back home to Ithaca, after leaving to fight in the great Trojan War. As the journey home unfolds, he will encounter great challenges such as coming into contact with a Cyclops, a witch, a couple of sirens and people from the underworld who were once with him on his journey.
The other half follows what was left in Ithaca, his son and wife, discussing and wondering where Odysseus has gone, whether he is alive or dead after his rumored great success in winning the war in Troy. Stories have begun to surface about Odysseus’ unique strategy in war, which is to hide in a wooden horse displayed as a gift and sacrifice to the gods to get inside enemy territory. This tactic allows Odysseus and his men to swiftly and violently attack everyone in the walled city, including opposing soldiers, women and children.
In this manner, these two perspectives create the two opposing ideas of outward success and internal failure: the way Odysseus sees his journey and the way others view Odysseus who has yet to return home. On the one hand, rumors and tales began to spread throughout Ithaca and neighboring cities about Odysseus and the horse strategy. “What happened to the great man who won the war against Troy?” became the question everyone was asking. Talks began to grow as Odysseus’s wife, Penelope, filled her home with suitors, not taking any of them but rather allowing them to sit, eat and drink while she sat and sewed.
Additionally, Odysseus’ son, Telemachus, viewed Odysseus as great, learning about him from his blind trainer, Eumaeus, who spoke highly of Odysseus. Moreover, as Telemachus left for Sparta, the king there welcomed him with open arms, discussing the war with a similar level of greatness and expressing his unwavering love and loyalty to Odysseus.
On the other hand, the other perspective is told by Odysseus, the man himself, rather than the man being talked about by others. He does not see the war as a success but rather as manipulation and sin. He manipulated his enemies through faith, turning a horse meant for a religious sacrifice into a way to kill and defeat for personal gain in war. A sacrifice that signifies connection between the humans and their gods, showing them their love, care and compassion for giving to the world above turned into something of a trick to kill their enemies, their women and children.
In this way, Odysseus felt so guilty about his actions that he could not go home and celebrate his success; he knew deep down that this wasn’t a real success, but a betrayal to his religion and the gods, leading to a twenty-year journey. Additionally, he took men, who also had families on a twenty-year journey because of his internal issues with failures that he was unable to face. That does not seem like the man talked about by others, but rather a man of shame, selfishness and greed.
Therefore, a man might seem great in everyone’s eyes but not in the eyes of his creator. This universal message led me to not just wonder about Odysseus but the maker of the film himself, Christopher Nolan. Nolan is known for making outstanding films that are praised by the public and the academy, winning countless awards and love from audiences.
And don’t get me wrong, his movies are great. The sound alone from this film shook viewers out of their seats. Similar to Odysseus, it is very obvious that he is a skilled man. Not many directors get a 250 million dollar budget for a film and the pass to use exclusive cameras, strictly using the IMAX lenses for the whole film, capturing these one-of-a-kind shots.
Although the plot itself is not his own, the film is based on Homer’s work. There was no script written, rather taken from another writer to create this film. Yet, it has been so easy for people to quickly praise Nolan’s The Odyssey as an outstanding film, attaching his name to someone else’s work, recreating a story with clear shots, amazing sound and impeccable acting. However, the key word here is that this is a recreation, leading me to wonder about the message of self versus the subject in the eyes of Nolan. Is it possible that the public might be too quick to praise a film, simply because Christopher Nolan’s name is attached to it and relying on his past success as a great director, rather than forming a genuine critique of the movie itself?
And even more so, could this all be a testament to society praising the creator, even if the creator himself knows deep down that his work is really a copy of another creator? Even his past big film Oppenheimer gained the attention and praise of the public, yet the plot is the past. There is no plot created if the content is about historical events. In this manner, Nolan might be an outstanding director, yet the plot has a different storyteller. So really, is it enough to say that a recreation makes this work unique if in truth it is a copy?
Overall, a person might be seen by everyone as great, but they might not feel the same way about themselves. Nolan raises this idea in his most recent film, The Odyssey, through Odysseus, or possibly even himself in a meta manner as the director, showing how public praise does not always reflect the way a person views their own accomplishments. Therefore, I have come to realize that perhaps to achieve greatness, one should follow the path that feels meaningful to oneself, because, at the end of the day, greatness is also in the hands of the creator.
Photo Credit: Unsplash