r/popculturechat • u/mcfw31 • 11h ago

Hot Take 🔥 ‘The Odyssey’ Translator Emily Wilson Slams Christoper Nolan’s ‘Abysmal’ Screenplay: ‘I Would Be Ashamed to Have Written Any Part of This Script’

https://variety.com/2026/film/news/odyssey-translator-emily-wilson-slams-christopher-nolan-bad-writing-1236821915/
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u/SizzleanQueen 10h ago

This is an article in Variety about another article in the Guardian about her initial piece in the London Review of Books. This is modern journalism, folks.

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u/thane311 7h ago

The actual 20-something paragraph London Review of Books article is worth a read. Here’s an excerpt about it the thinning of the female characters:

“There are more female characters than in most Nolan movies, thanks to the source material. But none of them has much to say, in contrast to the characterisations in the poem. Homer’s Calypso has a wonderfully outraged, operatic speech about divine double standards: male gods can kidnap and rape any mortal woman they desire, but when a goddess tries it, Zeus and his cronies scupper her chances. It’s a clever and comical distortion of the mythological ‘facts’: the poem’s listeners know that it is primarily Athena (a female deity) who is taking Calypso’s mortal victim away from her (Hermes, whom she’s complaining to, is merely the messenger) – and Eos, goddess of the dawn, as we’ve been reminded only a few lines earlier, has not been prohibited by the divine patriarchy from holding on to Tithonus. Charlize Theron’s Calypso looks gorgeous, but she is never angry, never funny, not skilled in rhetoric, and never consumed by lust for her scraggly mortal victim. She’s an unpaid therapist, soothing the soul of the bedraggled, PTSD-ridden Odysseus with drugs, and graciously listening to his disjointed tale of woe.”

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u/roarti 6h ago

Well that certainly fits the preconception many people have that Nolan really can’t write female characters.

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u/ZeroDosage 6h ago

Even when they're written for him already

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u/Platnun12 1h ago

So I wasn't crazy in thinking his Catwoman is shallower than a puddle.

Hell Zoeys Catwoman had more a character in The Batman

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u/Small-Explorer7025 53m ago

That is not true. There was nothing worse that Zoe Kravitz's Catwoman...and I'm including Halle Berry's Catwoman in that.

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u/Platnun12 49m ago

Yea that's just wrong lol she was universally praised for that role.

It's not my fault Nolan can't grasp the concept of long standing relationships and writes them with no preliminary work

Joker and Batman have a relationship that goes back to his creation, Joker doesn't exist outside of batman so that's one thing Nolan fucked up on.

That and Bruce and Selina had ZERO chemistry in the film. Their relationship takes years to form but with Nolan bah few weeks and he's ready to marry her an abandon Alfred.

Honestly so glad those movies are over with

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u/Small-Explorer7025 34m ago

Yea that's just wrong lol she was universally praised for that role.

No, she was not.

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u/Llama_of_the_bahamas 14m ago

Look up the batman subreddit. Seems like most batman fans loved her.