‘The Odyssey’: The Most Compelling Hero Isn’t Odysseus
Himesh Patel’s Eurylochus believes in his king long after everyone else loses faith — and pays the ultimate price.
“I don’t want Odysseus’s song. I want Odysseus!” a waiting Penelope (the emotive Anne Hathaway) declares. “Eight years since Troy fell. Where is he?!”
While most everyone who has fought in the Trojan War has returned or is confirmed dead, her husband, the king of Ithaca, is nowhere to be found.
Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of the Greek epic, based on the more than 2,700-year-old text, makes a few choices that make us quickly realize that the protagonist is a mere mortal after all. Odysseus’s name, which literally means “sufferer” in Greek, is fated to lose all his men and spend years on his journey home. Yet, as Odysseus tries to sail back to Ithaca, it is Eurylochus (the adept Himesh Patel), who gains our sympathy. Eurylochus is the one who must deal with, and suffer alongside, this reckless leader. He is, effectively, us — which makes him one of the film’s best parts. For the Odysseus (a riveting Matt Damon) we meet in the film is a far cry from Homer’s hero.