Christopher Nolan's new film The Odyssey has drawn criticism online over its diverse casting, including Lupita Nyong'o as Helen of Troy and trans actor Elliot Page as the soldier Sinon, with some labelling the choices "woke". The author, having seen the film, argues this backlash is misplaced and that the casting is simply an artistic decision rather than a political statement, and instead identifies a genuinely political and, in the author's view, deeply flawed Nolan film elsewhere in his back catalogue.

The article argues that Nolan's true "most political" and worst film is 2012's The Dark Knight Rises, whose muddled portrayal of Bane's uprising against Gotham's elite is seen as confused and, notably, insulting to the poor by lumping ordinary underprivileged citizens in with freed criminals and assassins. The piece connects this to the real-world Occupy Wall Street movement, which began on 17 September 2011 with a 2,000-person march in Lower Manhattan before establishing an encampment in Zuccotti Park near Wall Street, protesting corporate greed and the handling of the 2008 financial crisis, and suggests the film's timing and imagery landed awkwardly against that backdrop.