An IGN article examines how Christopher Nolan handles the Greek gods in his film adaptation of The Odyssey, arguing his "grounded" approach is essential to understanding the film's climactic twist. Rather than depicting Zeus, Poseidon and other Olympians as literal, intervening deities, Nolan frames the gods as ancient attempts to make sense of natural forces and human psychology, a choice that sets up a major reveal involving Zendaya's Athena. The piece contends that without this ambiguous treatment of the divine, the film's central mystery would not work.

The article details how characters such as Samantha Morton's Circe and Charlize Theron's Calypso occupy ambiguous ground between sorceress and goddess, embodying themes of guilt, punishment and denial that mirror Matt Damon's Odysseus's own psychological struggle to confront his past actions. It reveals that Odysseus has mentally superimposed a murdered woman's image onto his vision of Athena, a coping mechanism exposed in a pivotal scene where he confesses his crimes to his wife Penelope, played by Anne Hathaway. Nolan is quoted from a TIME interview explaining his aim to immerse audiences in the characters' fear of natural forces, such as storms and the sea, rather than presenting the gods as literal figures on Olympus.