californianNostalgia

Oh dear God GIRL OLAF IS REAL????

I mean if you just want to take, "There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible." This line makes me laugh every time I see it, it rules. And it has nothing to do with Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (2026).

Presumably it's coming from the same complaint well as the majority of Wilson's piece: that while the Homeric poem is a celebration of fucking around and feasting, this movie is not. But in just saying, "it's not this" and nothing more, she's not discussing or even acknowledging how sex and food are actually used in this retelling. Both are tied together in what has been widely praised among audiences as one of the most indelible sequences: Samantha Morton's scene as the witch Circe. In it, the threat of sexual violence and act of eating are linked in a commentary on warmongering rapaciousness writ large, as a part of Nolan's intently laid out thesis of the Trojan horse as a kind of atomic bomb xenia violation whose nuclear winter the whole Mediterranean is now living under. And yes the food does look horrible, because it's horror food! It's difficult to describe in words, but it's like the stew Odysseus's men are eating is turning into gristly tentacles in their mouths, the sounds of their eating ghastly and so disgusting, while Morton transforms them through....something I will not even try to describe, I've just never seen anything quite like it onscreen. Largely practical effects too, astonishing.

Not a bit of that is in that line, of course. Great line, but isn't about the movie, it's about the author.

And honestly, the author is a bit out on a limb with much of how she has actually interpreted The Odyssey (film) itself, must also be said! And not just by me, or by film critics naturally, but also other classics scholars:

I mean when early on she summarily defined the work of cinema as "light and noise" and moved on, it was pretty clear that Wilson just doesn't have a ton of respect or feeling for epic scale movies in general. Which is fine! Everyone has types of art that they don't jibe with. But you don't go to the person who's not keen on dance for a good assessment of the new ballet, negative or positive.

Because the alternative is that I try to get my thoughts out and end up with a 38 minute YouTube breakdown of all the things I liked and disliked about the archery in the film

in the climax, nikki whips herself with bear’s pistol, instead of him.

he never once takes accountability, starting with sandy’s death. he asks his cat’s corpse, “what did you do?!” as if he didn’t leave his oxycontin both out in the open, and quite literally open, otherwise sandy wouldn’t have been able to gain access to the pills. even when bear tells sarah about sandy’s death, he doesn’t tell her how sandy died: by his irresponsible, dangerous actions. and yet, bear is still more upset by the fact that nikki’s quitting the music store, and the idea that he may never see her again, than his only companion (in his dead grandmother’s house since her death, no less) passing.

so for nikki’s last line before the credits roll to be a choked, scream-sob asking herself, “WHAT DID YOU DO?!” was a great bookend of sorts. it could be misconstrued as her screaming at bear’s corpse, but real!nikki was shown to be quick-witted. she’s grappling with not only the textbook almost-immediate severe breakdown that many domestic abuse survivors experience once their abuser is out of the picture/they’re “safe,” — complete with the shame, self-blame, confusion, and almost-amnesiac gaps in memory that formed for her own protection, “entity” aside — on top of knowing she is about to go to prison.

nikki freeman is the most tragic example of a final girl i’ve ever seen: left to shoulder all the accountability for that musty, sweaty, insecure shrimp of a man’s severe psychological and sexual abuse of her, and she’s most likely going to prison?