Christopher Nolan's film adaptation of "The Odyssey," starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway and Tom Holland, makes numerous deliberate departures from Homer's original epic poem, sparking online criticism from those unaware of the story's long tradition of reinterpretation. Variety argues these changes are consistent with the oral, ever-evolving nature of the ancient text, and reflect Nolan's need to condense a 600-page work into a three-hour film while adding his own creative stamp, much as he did with "Oppenheimer" and "Inception."

Among the notable alterations, Penelope (Hathaway) is portrayed as far more self-possessed than in the poem, reversing the original dynamic in which her son Telemachus (Holland) speaks down to her; in the film she instead chastises him for immaturity and expresses a desire to see her suitors burnt alive. Elliot Page plays a reimagined version of Sinon, a character borrowed from Virgil's "Aeneid" rather than Homer, recast as an Ithacan shepherd boy tricked by Odysseus (Damon) into a fatal sacrifice during the Trojan Horse ploy. Other changes reportedly touch on the film's portrayal of sex, the gods, and its ending, though the article's full breakdown was cut short in the available text.