‘The Odyssey’ movie review: Christopher Nolan’s epic palimpsest of destiny and design finds its way home

It remains one of literature’s longest-running debates whether Homer was ever a person at all, or simply the accumulated voice of generations of storytellers gradually refining the same epic homecoming across centuries. Three thousand years since their time, one of the most defining storytellers of the modern age has finally found his way to that very tale, bringing with him a film that feels, in every conceivable sense, like the cumulative expression of everything his career has been converging upon. The Fates conspired to bring Christopher Nolan to The Odyssey . Or perhaps it was the other way around. Either way, it is difficult to imagine a filmmaker better equipped to shoulder Homer’s poem into the 21st century.