What is it about The Odyssey that’s endured throughout the millennia? And what is it that has enraptured writer-director Christopher Nolan enough to make a faithfully accurate big-screen adaption? Indeed, while various episodes of Homer’s epic poem are well known across popular culture, the story itself doesn’t teach any grand lessons about heroics or military tactics that easily translate to modern sensibilities. Nolan, in his post-Batman career, has continually pushed the envelope with spectacle filmmaking, and while The Odyssey may not rank as the best of his career, it improbably, occasionally, feels like his most personal film to date.

This is not to say that Nolan sees himself as a modern-day Odysseus (here played by Matt Damon), the hero of the Trojan War who struggles for ten long years to find his way back home to Ithaca. But in chronicling Odysseus’ journey, Nolan wrestles with the idea of one man’s responsibility to uphold the virtues and values of a functioning society. Nolan has built a career out of an adherence to practical filmmaking and the preservation of the theatrical experience, and The Odyssey is no different, sometimes to its own detriment. The film is historic in that it’s the first to ever be shot entirely with IMAX cameras and every sweeping vista and wide-angle shot is breathtaking to behold – courtesy of Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography. But Nolan’s dedication to analog filmmaking can sometimes lessen the impact of his imagery; too often, people or things are out of focus for the duration of a shot, most notably in the climactic reveal of a hidden object towards the end of the film.

Nevertheless, The Odyssey is a film which only Christopher Nolan could make – to say nothing of his status within the industry as the rare filmmaker who could get a non-franchise film made with a blank check. Surprisingly, the film shares some DNA with Nolan’s previous film and Best Picture winner, Oppenheimer. Throughout Odysseus’ journey, multiple characters invoke “Zeus’s law”, the principle which guides their moral compass as the idea that one must treat others how they’d like to be treated. Homer’s original story paints Odysseus as a clever trickster, and there are shades of it within Damon’s performance, but Nolan’s version sees him mostly guided by decency and justice, and spares him the wrath of the gods. It ultimately feels like a plea from Nolan, seeing the state of the current world, and wondering if we can ever go back to a time of kindness and empathy. Crucially, this doesn’t feel like a phoned-in, modern-day injection of a message where there didn’t need to be one. Rather, it feels like Nolan truly dug at the heart of Odysseus and discovered something hidden beneath Homer’s prose.

The story’s episodic and fragmented structure and mixed timeline puts this theme to the test at times, but as with most Nolan films, The Odyssey will surely benefit from repeated viewings. It’s mostly present back home in Ithaca, where Penelope (Anne Hathaway) and Telemachus (Tom Holland) must entertain her various suitors – led by Antinous (Robert Pattinson) – hoping to land her hand in marriage, though they still hope that one day Odysseus will return home. It’s also in the elevated role of Eumaeus (John Leguizamo), Odysseus’ blind pig farmer who’s looked down upon by the suitors but receives kindness from his masters.

Recounting The Odyssey beat for beat would be a fool’s errand, but each sequence is so grand and ambitious that they would be the high watermarks of most filmmakers’ entire careers. The interlude on Circe’s (Samantha Morton) island stands out as Nolan dipping his toes into the horror genre, and though her screen time is limited, Morton gives one of the best and most memorable performances of the film. Similarly, Odysseus and his crew’s encounter with the cyclops Polyphemus (Bill Irwin) stands out because of its reliance on CGI – here, he’s about 20 feet tall – and its mounting tension as they try to escape.

Those who’ve studied The Odyssey will find some solace in Nolan’s faithfully accurate recreation of Homer’s epic, and while Nolan brings his own sensibilities into the story, namely in Odysseus’ guilt, they might wish he had done something more inventive with the structure of the film. The sprawling nature of the story unfortunately means that some characters get left behind and given little to do to justify their big-name casting, like Charlize Theron (as Calypso), Zendaya (as Athena), and Lupita Nyong’o (Helen of Troy). Yes, Nolan’s oldest criticism of thinly drawn female characters can’t be adequately defended, but Penelope and Circe’s inclusion gives them their own agency independent of Odysseus. Hathaway in particular gives, perhaps, the best performance of the film as a woman who knows her options as an ersatz single woman in ancient Greece are limited, but does what’s necessary to survive and hold on to her status.

Every Christopher Nolan film has become an event worthy of celebrating for its big-screen appeal. The Odyssey earns its event status (not just because IMAX 70mm tickets bizarrely went on sale a full calendar year before its release) and cements Nolan in rarefied air. Most were curious how Nolan could possibly follow up his Oscar success from three years ago, and it seems only logical in retrospect that he’d return to one of the oldest and well-known stories in western civilization. If Nolan simply wanted to challenge himself by making a sweeping, historical epic on a scale which rarely gets made these days, then The Odyssey is an unqualified success. Thankfully he injects a tragically poignant message and a plea for civility into the proceedings as well, a necessary and primal urge that hopes to last as long as the epic poem already has.

Universal will release The Odyssey in theaters nationwide on July 17.

OSCAR POTENTIAL:

• Can Christopher Nolan pull off the rare Best Picture repeat after winning for Oppenheimer? At the very least, The Odyssey will surely find a spot amongst the nominees, and Nolan himself has a good shot as a Best Director nominee.
• I’m less infatuated with composer Ludwig Göransson’s score here than his Oscar-winning work on Sinners, Oppenheimer, and Black Panther, but at this point, it’s unwise to bet against him at least receiving a nomination
• The work of cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, and editor Jennifer Lame – who both won for Nolan’s previous film – is similarly impressive and will likely receive nominations as well.
• If the Academy goes gaga for the film, as I’m sure they will, expect nominations in Lead Actor and Actress for Damon and Hathaway. If they’re especially gaga for it, Tom Holland and John Leguizamo could get swept up in the current and receive Supporting Actor nominations.
• Were it not for Dune: Part Three later this year, I’d expect The Odyssey to clean up in below-the-line nominations. That may still happen, of course, but I wonder how much space Academy members will hold for two fantasy epics.
• Unlike Oppenheimer, I’d be surprised if The Odyssey missed a Visual Effects nomination. Here, the effects are much more visible, and the seems never show, despite their improbability.