After months of critique, backlash over creative choices and intense anticipation, “The Odyssey” arrived to overwhelmingly positive reviews — with many reviewers pointing to an unexpected religious theme at the heart of the adaptation.
The central principle of Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey” is the reverence for Zeus’ law of xenia, the sacred law of hospitality that, as presented in the film, calls for strangers and beggars to receive the same compassion they would hope to receive in return.
It nearly exactly reflects the Christ-taught Golden Rule to “treat people the way you want to be treated.”
In Nolan’s film, xenia stands as the highest moral law, with serious consequences for those who violate it — and it is upheld because any stranger could be a god in disguise.
Odysseus violates xenia during the Trojan War, when he devises the successful strategy of invading Troy through the false gift of the Trojan horse, paving the way for a Greek victory. Though traditionally celebrated as a hero, Nolan depicts Odysseus as a man haunted by his violation and in need of redemption.
For violating Zeus’ law, Odysseus endures a spiritual exile, returning home — not as a celebrated hero — but as a man burdened by the devastating consequences of war and his grueling journey home.
Tad Walch noted in his review of “The Odyssey” for the Deseret News that the film has a “surprising religious message.”
Walch added, “The better angels in Odysseus encourage him to honor the second great commandment, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself’ and to live out Christ’s teaching to ‘love one another, as I have loved you.’”
Writer Derek Thompson called the film “kinda Christian,” Ezra Klein from The New York Times said Nolan “smuggled the core of Judeo-Christian ethics into ‘The Odyssey,’” and Luis Parrales from The Atlantic said the film “seems more biblical than Homeric.”
Another reviewer wrote that Nolan “took a Greek myth and gave it an almost Christian ethos,” adding that the film presents a “Christian-style hero.”
And Andrew Zuk from The Catholic Times wrote that the film’s “major themes intentionally surround faith.”
He continued, “The movie appears to be made for modern audiences, but the themes of honoring the divine law, understanding how the divine speaks, and controlling your fate versus following the divine are prevalent throughout the film.”
Nolan responded to claims he “Christianized” his adaptation in a now-viral video interview with Chinese podcaster and political philosophy lecturer Zhong Shu in Beijing.
Zong raised the concept of atonement in Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” a concept that does not exist in ancient Greek culture or Homer’s poem, and asked the filmmaker if he intended to “Christianize” the film.
“I wasn’t too conscious of how I was approaching it philosophically other than I really honed in on the idea of what’s termed xenia,” Nolan said. “In the film, we call it Zeus’ law for simplicity, but it’s that idea of mutual respect — that I treat you the way I want to be treated. And in their theology it’s because you might be a god in disguise. I really drilled down on that.”
“I think the idea of atonement in a way is what we bring as viewers to the story,” Nolan added. “I don’t know whether there really is atonement in the film, or whether we just feel that catharsis or that’s the process we’re seeing in the final meeting that we’ve waited for between Odysseus and Penelope.
“But I think in a way we may be bringing our more modern sensibility to that. Insofar as (atonement is) there, it’s not a deliberate attempt to Christianize it, but it’s an outgrowth or it’s a natural conclusion of burrowing in on this philosophical idea of what happens when you break Zeus’ law.”
Nolan previously addressed the religious themes woven into his story during interviews ahead of the film’s release.
He told The New York Times the concept of Zeus’ law made the film “stunningly relevant.”
“It is the golden rule,” he told the Los Angeles Times, “the idea that you treat people the way you want to be treated. Partly it’s because a humble person may be a god in disguise, but it also allows society to function.”
“People need to travel and trade, and everyone is at the mercy of strangers,” he continued. “Its abuse has terrible consequences. There is a price to be paid for vengeance, and violence is the most straightforward expression of that.”