The Odyssey, Hollywood's Fear Problem, and What Makes a Movie Star

Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey has become one of the most contentious films of the year, and Critical Drinker's "meh" review earned him a wave of hate from people who hadn't even watched it. The controversy centers on casting choices—Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy, Elliot Page in an undisclosed role—but Drinker's actual complaint runs deeper. "My only real issue was the lack of emotional engagement and how kind of removed and cool and sterile it is," he says. "That's just a hallmark of Christopher Nolan movies at this point."

What the Casting Controversy Misses

The race-swapping debate dominated online discourse, but Drinker points out that both Nyong'o and Page appear for roughly five minutes total in a film that runs over seven hours. "It didn't really impact my perception of the film," he says. The bigger problem is what Nolan did to Odysseus himself. The original character is a brilliant, arrogant adventurer desperate to return home to his family. Nolan's version turns him into "basically a Vietnam vet with PTSD and survivor's guilt." That changes the entire meaning of the story. Drinker draws a parallel to Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings: "Everyone would concede whatever liberties Peter Jackson took, you got the spirit of it. But if you change the very characterization of Odysseus and his mo