John Leguizamo

THE ODYSSEY: epic filmmaking at its best

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Photo caption: Matt Damon in THE ODYSSEY. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

It’s not surprising that The Odyssey is a superb film. After all, this is the work of a great filmmaker, Christopher Nolan (Oppenheimer, Interstellar, Dunkirk, Inception, The Dark Knight, Memento), making full use of his considerable skill and imagination. The source material has been unsurpassed as a melding of adventure, romance and trials of human character for 2700 years.

Odysseus (Matt Damon) is the smartest and most devious of Greece’s warrior kings, the strategist who devised the famous ruse of the Trojan Horse, and facilitated the Greek victory at Troy after ten years of stalemate. Now Odysseus, with his fleet of ships, can sail back to his home island of Ithaca. Unfortunately, gods and monsters await.

For all of his courage and resourcefulness, Odysseus has the ability to annoy, and even enrage, enough of the gods to turn his return voyage into a ten-year ordeal. He will need to get by a 60-foot tall Cyclops, an island of man-eating giants, supernatural songstresses who lure mariners into shipwrecks, a giant whirlpool, a six-headed monster who snacks on sailors, and a witch who casts horrible spells. And then there’s the seven years as the sex slave to another witch. Fortunately, has the goddess Athena (Zendaya) on his side; she admires his intelligence, and helps him out of the worst jams.

Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland in THE ODYSSEY. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Back home in Ithaca, there’s another story thread. Odysseus’ queen Penelope (Anne Hathaway) has been running Ithaca in his absence, but he’s been gone for twenty years, and a hundred opportunists are sponging off Odysseus’ wealth while they pressure Penelope to marry one of them. Odysseus also left a baby son, but Telemachus (Tom Holland) is now only twenty, and he’s too callow to take on so many ruthless, grown-ass men. Will Odysseus return in time? Will anyone, especially Penelope, recognize him after 20 years? Can Odysseus battle the suitors to reclaim what is his and Penelope’s? Will Penelope take him back?

In The Odyssey, Nolan shows what a great Hollywood epic can look and feel like – in the best sense. Filmed in IMAX, The Odyssey looks and sounds great. Amazingly, Nolan did not use CGI or green screens – instead, he employed old-fashioned practical effects, forced perspective, animatronic puppetry and plenty of hoists, rigging, and stunt performers. The set pieces are wondrous, even for the monsters – Polyphemus, Scylla and the Laestrygonians. The sack of Troy was exactly like what I imagine the razing of a Bronze Age city would look and feel like. And it all looks better and more convincing than it would have with CGI.

Because of the genius of Nolan and his editor Jennifer Lame, who won an Oscar for editing Nolan’s Oppenheimer, the audience does not have the sensation of sitting through a three hour movie.

Matt Damon and Zendaya in THE ODYSSEY. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Nolan is pretty faithful to the source material, and, although he compresses some the parts of the tale , he captures Homer’s key elements. Nolan’s re-imagining of the ending is actually less of a slaughter than Homer’s, and Nolan plays down the sexual aspect of Odysseus’ sojourn with Calypso (Charlize Theron). Nolan does add some New Agey hokum about the “Code of Zeus”, but it’s harmless.

Nolan’s version is more nuanced than the 1954 Ulysses with Kirk Douglas, which emphasized the adventure aspect. Last year’s The Return, which covered the return to Ithaca, is a fine movie, but doesn’t have the epic scale of The Odyssey (not to mention the monsters). Similarly, the scale of Nolan’s The Odyssey overwhelms the star-studded, Emmy-winning 1998 mini-series.

Nolan, Damon and Zendaya show us the relationship between Odysseus and Athena particularly well.

John Leguizamo in THE ODYSSEY. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

Hathaway is excellent as the resolute yet vulnerable Penelope, a woman whose wits could match up with even those of Odysseus. I like Tom Holland’s performance as a well-meaning kid who just isn’t ready for prime time. Everyone in the cast is good, including Robert Pattinson and Corey Hawkins as two of the scariest and most odious suitors. An unrecognizable John Leguizamo is outstanding as Odysseus’ one remaining ally, a blind swineherd.

Samantha Morton in THE ODYSSEY. Courtesy of Universal Pictures.

If there’s a best performance in this movie, it may be Samantha Morton as the witch Circe, filled with grievance, creepiness and craftiness.

The Odyssey is both a great barn-burner,and a great love story, and Nolan has made it into this summer’s Must See .

BOB TREVINO LIKES IT: without dad’s encouragement, she’s stuck

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Photo caption: Barbie Ferreira and John Leguizamo, in BOB TREVINO LIKES IT. Courtesy of Roadside Attractions.

In Bob Trevino Likes It, one those adult coming of age stories that have become increasingly common increasingly common, twenty-something Lily (Barbie Ferreira) is stuck. She’s going nowhere in her career and her social life, and she just doesn’t envision herself as deserving the good things that anyone would want.

When we meet her father (French Stewart), we begin to understand why. Lily’s Dad is so self-absorbed that he only interacts with Lily when he sees her as a useful prop in his dating life. Hehasn’t romoted any sense of self-esteem in his daughter; his contribution is more like anti-self esteem. Still, she gets despondent when he overtly and cruelly rejects her.

When Lily searches for her dad’s name on Facebook, Robert Trevino, she finds lots of men with the same name, including a contractor who lives a couple hours away. Some online interactions grow into a cyber friendship, and then they meet in person. This Bob Trevino (John Leguizamo) is a really nice guy.

Lily is getting the interest, support and counsel from Bob that, ideally, one would get from one’s father. Lily wants to plunge headlong into a situation where Bob becomes her surrogate father. Bob is kind, but reticent about getting in too deep. The audience learns what Bob doesn’t reveal to Lily – Bob’s own grievous loss and the major stresses from his family and his job.

This is a heartfelt, if simplistic, story, and it’s a weeper.

It’s entirely believable that such a chosen family could result from an encounter on today’s social media, and, indeed, the film bears a title, “inspired by a true story“. Bob Trevino Likes It was written and directed by Tracie Laymon in her first feature.

John Leguizamo is very good in a role as a very decent man who is emotionally contained and suffers the burdens of other people’s issues. So is French Stewart as a less complicated character – Stewart does narcissism very well.

I screened Bob Trevino Likes It for the Nashville Film Festival, where it won the jury award for narrative features. It won both the jury award and the audience award at SXSW. That means that most people will like it more than I did. Again – it’s a weeper.