Odyssey Movie Review 🍿 🎥

So in the midst of my book coming out, we had some time to go and watch The Odyssey, such a well-written and well-cast movie. I’m a huge Greek mythology nerd, and my lady said the movie was phenomenal as well, which means my movie-picking choices are top tier if she liked it. The movie was a 9.9 out of 10 because the concession stand didn’t have her soda of preference, but we pushed through. Here are my thoughts on it.

I’ve been thinking about The Odyssey, and what makes this story so powerful isn’t simply the mythology, the monsters, the gods, or even the journey home. It’s the fact that thousands of years later, we’re still living our own version of it. Odysseus goes to war, survives things that should have destroyed him, gets distracted, tempted, tested, delayed, and humbled—and through all of it, one thing remains in the back of his mind: home. That hit me. Because everybody has an Ithaca. Maybe yours is success. Maybe it’s peace. Maybe it’s becoming the person you always knew you could be. Maybe it’s building a family, creating something that outlives you, or simply reaching a place in life where your soul finally feels at home.

And just like Odysseus, the hardest part isn’t always knowing where you want to go. It’s surviving everything that tries to make you forget. The monsters in our lives don’t always have one eye. Sometimes they look like fear, ego, bad relationships, distractions, comfort, or people who love the version of you that hasn’t grown yet. Sometimes the monster is the person staring back at you in the mirror. That’s why The Odyssey has survived for centuries. Underneath all the spectacle is a story about something painfully human: the distance between who we are and who we’re trying to become. And maybe that’s what the journey is really about—not simply making it home—but becoming somebody worthy of the person who left home dreaming.

We all get lost. We all encounter storms. We all have moments where something beautiful tries to convince us to abandon the destination. But if you know where your Ithaca is, keep sailing. Some journeys take longer because the person who arrives cannot be the same person who departed.

• Samuel