The Odyssey & The Invite

Monday, September 14, 2026

Intro

[cheerful piano music]

MARIE WESTHAVER:

Hello, and welcome to At the Movies with Mike and Marie, a show where two film professors talk about movies. I'm Marie Westhaver.

MIKE GIULIANO:

And I'm Mike Guiliano.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

And today we're going to talk about The Odyssey and The Invite, starting with The Odyssey. We have to throw our hat in the ring. Everybody's talking about The Odyssey.

The Odyssey

MIKE GIULIANO:

So I'll talk about it, too, then. All right, I'll join the Greek chorus. Usually when Marie and I talk about movies, we always have an issue. Sometimes we share it with the public of, well, if we talk about the story, should we warn about spoilers? We always have that keen awareness. But here, I have to smile at that because it's a 3,000-year-old story, so it doesn't involve spoilers. So if you haven't read The Iliad and The Odyssey and so on, still, everyone knows at least the greatest hits, if you will, the episodes from it that we recognize, and it hits those marks.

I've got to say, first off, all due credit to Christopher Nolan on a technical level. He's really a superb craftsman. This film is nearly three hours long. He keeps it moving along. It's really refreshing to have that sense of spectacle with the kind of confidence that he brings technically. Having said that, I've got to say I didn't like it as much as I thought I would, and I've wondered about that, well, during all the hours I watched it and in the hours since then. And I think I can identify a few reasons why.

Basically, the film owes more to Hollywood than to Homer. And that's not necessarily a bad thing in terms of moviegoing. But Marie and I often talk about from the page to the screen and sometimes degrees of fidelity to a source novel, even if the source novel was no great shakes. 'Oh, but they changed this or that.' And we get into all that. But here, it's a certified classic for all these thousands of years.

But jesting aside there, I think the real problem from a narrative perspective is, in the film, there is little direct interaction between the gods and people. In Homer, it's constant. I mean, it opens with Zeus and so on, and there's constant interaction between humanity and the gods up above, oftentimes, in The Iliad of course, directly on the battlefield. But in both books on a poetic and philosophical level, that counts for a lot.

Where it's awkward here is that there's very little direct interaction. Where you do get it-- and this is very telling, I think-- is that there are several brief face-to-face conversations between Odysseus and Athena. And of course, Athena is played by Zendaya, who's in everything nowadays. So when she pops up, it's like, oh, of course, she's got to be in this movie. But where it hurts the film, I think, is it almost seems, within the context of how this film is put together-- It almost seems distracting. Like, what?

He's been talking with all these other human beings and fighting and being chased by monsters and all that. And then suddenly, here's Athena. And she pops up for a few minutes here and a few minutes there. And it doesn't really amount to much. And it's almost like, well, what's she doing here? I mean, even at times like, well, who is she? And they figure out, OK, that's Athena. But why is she popping up? And why is nobody else popping up that way?

So it seems perfunctory in that respect. I almost feel, in terms of editing, the film might have been stronger on its own terms if she simply was chopped out, if she wasn't even there. I'm not sure we'd miss her that way, because, while she's there, we're not quite sure what she's doing.

What happens then? What are the consequences? With the way the film is put together, Odysseus becomes a more conventional action hero, and the narrative itself is much more naturalistic. Now, there's an inherent irony there because he's constantly fighting monsters and supernatural forces and this and that. But essentially, it's a naturalistic narrative.

The fact that it's episodic is inescapable. And The Iliad and The Odyssey, particularly in The Odyssey, yes, all those adventures that Odysseus survives. And so we're going to get all those famous episodes. And there are times where it seems like it's the famous episode strung together. I'm not sure there's any way around that. What they do in the film, though, that doesn't completely work is that there are periodically flashbacks to the battlefield in Troy, to the backstory, if you will. I couldn't see a really consistent strategy there.

Sometimes it would flashback for just a minute or two. Sometimes it would flashback for a whole segment. And it just seemed kind of choppy that way. I almost feel like maybe, if you're going to have a straight-line, naturalistic narrative, maybe just keep it going that way, maybe some verbal references to what happened earlier. I'm not totally decided on that, but I just thought the film oftentimes felt choppy in that respect, kind of fragmentary.

And the related source of disappointment for me is the portrayal of Odysseus himself. In the poem, he's not entirely a good guy. He's certainly rough around the edges and so on. Here, Matt Damon, he's convincing, certainly. He plays him in a really stolid way. I call it stolid, verging on boring. He's not charismatic. He's just sort of this gruff, bearded figure, barreling ahead.

And in contemporary terms, in terms of how he's presented to an audience today, based on everything he went through in 10 years of war in Troy and now almost 10 years trying to get home and so on, he's really presented basically as somebody who's suffering from PTSD. Now, thank goodness nobody in the dialogue uses that expression. And I'm only half joking there because the dialogue is a quirky mix of what we take to be how ancient Greeks would talk.

There's a formalized diction at times, but then there's some very contemporary phrasing. We even get, by my count, three F-bombs in the film, and I don't know if that word was used back in the age of the Greeks. But they would have had the equivalent, which is-- between those and the violence, yes, it gets into our rating for that.

But with the way he's presented, I think we're meant to sympathize at the level of, after everything this guy's gone through, yes, he's going to flashback to the horrors of war. And he hasn't totally adjusted to his contemporary reality or irreality, whatever he's going through on his way home. To me, the film, it never dragged. It really does keep moving along. But I just felt after a while that if you're going to have an action hero, you should make them interesting.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

Well, well said. I did not have as much problem with Matt Damon in the role. I thought he did fine. I did not think that he and Anne Hathaway had much chemistry, but I thought they both did a really good job acting. I thought the runtime, as always, it's so long. It's such a long movie. But I was impressed that people stayed put. I expected more people to get up to race to the bathroom.

And in fact, I went with some friends. And before the film, one of them sent me an article somebody had actually published about The Odyssey-- "Best times to get up to visit the restroom." But we agreed, when we were watching it afterwards, there really wasn't a good time when you could have gotten up and run to the restroom without missing something big.

MIKE GIULIANO:

Well, you know what? You make a good point there because, again, with Christopher Nolan's technical smarts, the actual staging, episode by episode, whether he's on the battlefield at Troy or up against Cyclops or dealing with Calypso and Circe and so on, if you watch those just as separate episodes, they're so well crafted. They're really beautifully constructed cinematically that I would hate to think, well, what if you got up and exited the auditorium for a few minutes to miss one of the most famous of the famous episodes? That sort of thing. That would be on your conscience. Should you sit down and watch the three-hour film again to make sure you get all that?

But I noticed, too, that the audience really was with it. And this is a good moment maybe to use that as a springboard to talk about box office. This film has been extremely well received critically and commercially. I mean, they expected it would do well, but it went beyond well. It's really been a big hit. And between this film and Spider-Man, which we'll talk about presently a bit, and some other films this summer, the box office this summer has been a marked improvement on the previous summer, and really has been encouraging.

Not only more people going to the movies, the ones we've mentioned and some others, but a younger demographic, which the naysayers have thought maybe was lost forever, folks who would just sit home and look at their devices or something. But if you look at the actual numbers for a number of the films we could talk about, it's that teens into twenties demographic that actually is going to the movies.

And I find that really encouraging because what happens is filmgoing becomes a habit. If you see one thing and you and your friends like it, as you're walking out, you talk about it. It's a group activity. And then you think, well, what's happening opening next week? And once you start to get in that mindset, you realize, well, I can get off of the living room sofa. I can get away from my phone. There's that shared experience with the movies.

And you're absolutely right, Mary, when I was watching this film, the audience really stayed with it. Almost nobody got up. I don't mean to walk out, but even temporarily to walk out. People really were locked into it. And that's a really great sign. And again, all due credit to Christopher Nolan as the director. And we've mentioned a few of the actors already, but it has a really gifted cast in it. So it's really interesting to see what these actors bring to particular roles. So yeah, let's talk some more about whether Penelope, Telemachus-- there's a whole roster of people we could talk about.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

[chuckles]

Well, I really want to give a shout out to Samantha Morton as Circe. She was amazing. And it was such a wonderful surprise, the way that scene unfolded. I thought that was absolutely fantastic. I also really liked Cyclops. I mean, I've seen people try to render a Cyclops. This one just seemed so realistic.

MIKE GIULIANO:

Well, what's funny is I had interviewed Bill Irwin years ago and had seen him on stage a few times since then-- he's one of my favorite performers-- with what were called the New Vaudevillians, which now goes back some years. But he's really a skilled actor. And he manages to bring-- I wouldn't quite call it humanity to Cyclops, but he really individualizes it in a way where you really feel like this is a creature. This is, in some ways almost sympathetically, that if you only had the one eye and you lived in a cave and this and that, you wouldn't be too happy. You'd be kind of grumpy.

But again, this is where, in the casting, I agree with you, with Anne Hathaway as Penelope. She's not given much to do in the film. And this is where it'd be a curious scripting point. And Nolan, of course, also scripted. Well, because essentially that's her function in the poem, is that while Odysseus is fighting for 10 years and then coming home for another 10 years, she's sitting there in Ithaca, in the palace, just weaving and weaving. And then all the suitors are lining up, hoping that they can be the next king. But then, of course, she'll say, well, I'll take one of you when I'm done with this tapestry. And then, of course, she'll weave, and then she'll unravel, and so on.

That's essentially the character's function. So when you put that on screen, you know what I mean, there's not a whole lot otherwise to her. And Anne Hathaway, you're right, I mean, she looks fine in the role. And she knows how to weave and all that. But there's not too much more there. And I'm not quite sure how to get out of that one. But in terms of other actors and how well they do, yes, Samantha Morton is really terrific as Circe. Robert Pattinson as Antinous, one of the suitors, I mean, he's a scene stealer. He's such a conniving character, wanting to be the next king in Ithaca, and so on. He does it really well.

Charlize Theron as Calypso. I've mentioned Bill Irwin as Cyclops. And as we mentioned very quickly before, Tom Holland as Telemachus. I mean, again, the film is extremely well cast, but it's sort of hit or miss as to how effectively those work. So just as Anne Hathaway's kind of disappointing because what's she going to do with the role, likewise, Lupita Nyong'o plays Helen and Clytemnestra.

Helen of Troy is certainly no minor figure in the story. But on screen, she gets a few minutes here, a few minutes there. And it's almost like it takes a moment to have the recognition, ah, right, that's Helen. But then after you make that, oh, that's Helen, then, two minutes later, she's gone. So again, for a film this long, it manages to somehow squander some opportunities to really explore all that supporting cast.

And I'm really sympathetic to anyone who has to script this because, on the page, if you read the Odyssey, it's more than 500 pages in most translations. A lot is going to have to be condensed or somehow truncated or just cut out entirely. But goodness sakes, with that roster of secondary characters, how would you handle all that? And I think the film, on balance, does a good job with it. But there are individual famous characters along the way who maybe don't get their full due on screen.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

I also wanted to say I loved the way they handled the famous horse. It's one of those stories. Everybody knows about the Trojan horse. But every time I've seen it depicted in some sort of way, it's always on wheels. They just wheel it in. This, they had to drag that sucker.

And then when they're in it, people outside are running swords through it to see if there's anybody in there. And it was really clever to show, inside, how they immediately wiped-- he did get somebody. And they immediately wiped the blood off so that when they pulled the sword out, they wouldn't realize that there were people in there. Just very, very cleverly handled. Made you nervous watching it. And it was pretty impressive.

MIKE GIULIANO:

So I guess that qualifies as a spoiler, that there are soldiers inside that horse.

[laughter]

OK, I gave it away. But you're absolutely right. It's beautifully staged, and it gives a sense of two things. One, of just the immensity of the horse and the difficulty of getting it from the beach, inside the walls of Troy, and so on. And you really have a sense of just the cleverness of the Greeks, but also the arduous work to get it transported.

But that leads to the second point, which is that, in the ancient Greek world, with a gift like that, presumably from the gods or goddess Athena, you would not want to refuse it. And so if the Greeks are somehow leaving a gift like that, it would be on you if you somehow didn't accept the gift, even though you got to haul it a long way and all. And that leads to a certain related point which explains-- which to us nowadays might seem a little hard to understand.

All these years that he's been gone and Penelope's been there weaving and all, there's a palace full of suitors, all these rambunctious-- they're almost like frat-house guys carrying on all the time. It's like, well, why does she tolerate this? Why doesn't she just tell them, OK, shop's closed today, or get out of here, whatever. But no, in that ancient Greek world, one of the crucial words or concepts would have been hospitality, that if you have a visitor, if you have a stranger, whatever, you need to be hospitable that way.

So whether it's bringing a horse inside the city gates or it's allowing those suitors to basically have an all-day party for years on end, she needs to tolerate that and put up with that. She needs to be a gracious hostess in many ways. And that's one area where, watching it, understandably, we might think, well, what's going on here? Why doesn't she just get a bouncer and clear the house? Their mindset would have been quite different in that respect.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

So this movie seems to still have legs. I hear that they're scalping tickets in New York, where you can see it in 70-millimeter IMAX. I mean, this movie has just, I think, surprised everybody how well it took off. But honestly, Mike, is this not the kind of movie you go to the movies for? I mean, they shot it with IMAX cameras. You should see it in IMAX. It's never going to be the same on your phone or your TV at home. It's a spectacle.

MIKE GIULIANO:

You know, that's an important point. This is the first feature film shot entirely on IMAX. And you're absolutely right. There are only a few dozen screens in the world that can really accommodate that. And you're absolutely right, that they've had screenings that sold out at 2 o'clock in the morning, 4 o'clock in the morning. That's a great sign. But I did not see it in that format. But there are enough theaters where they can give you the enhanced experience. And if you see it on a really big screen, it's still quite effective.

And you're absolutely right. What will get people out of the house into a movie theater? Again, as I said at the outset, people expected this film to do well. I mean, it was predicted, and it went well beyond doing well. And you're absolutely right, it has what, in the industry, they call legs, even though I wish sometimes that the Trojan horse had legs that could take it inside Troy.

The film itself has legs, and it didn't drop-- I mean, it opened big and then really didn't drop much from week to week as we're talking, and worldwide has just been a phenomenal success. So why don't we talk a little bit about-- we should talk a little bit about Spider-Man, since, if we're talking box office, Spider-Man had a huge opening and showed that people still want to see superhero movies.

I mean, there's been a debate the last year or so. Are they flagging? Are we losing interest? And in some cases, yes. But with the right set of circumstances, these movies still really deliver. And this is a case where Tom Holland, goodness knows he's in the driver's seat now. What a great place for an actor to be. He plays Telemachus in this film. But also, of course, he's the star of Spider-Man-- Brand New Day.

And even though, as I've said over and over again, I'm not the biggest fan of that genre and I felt that Spider-Man-- Brand New Day was really drawn out, really protracted, Tom Holland's performance holds it together. And it's really a kind of melancholic take on it because, at this point, his Spider-Man is a guy in his twenties who's really lonely. And it really gives the film a little more gravitas than one might expect.

That's a mixed blessing because if you go for special effects and boombah action, you might feel it's dragging a bit that way. But psychologically, it oftentimes works well. And that's where the actor really, I think, carries the film.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

Well, Tom Holland and Zendaya are having a moment right now because they're in the two biggest blockbusters. Must be-- it must be awesome in their house.

MIKE GIULIANO:

I know. When I saw it, Spider-Man, I thought, what's Athena doing here?

MARIE WESTHAVER:

Look, she showed up again.

MIKE GIULIANO:

She showed up again.

[laughter]

The Invite

MARIE WESTHAVER:

Well, we should talk about The Invite. And I just want to start off by saying I love Olivia Wilde. I don't know if you ever watched the TV show House. I think I've seen every episode of House, and I loved her as a character on House. And I think the movies that she has chosen to direct have been really daring and interesting. And I also think-- she plays one of the four leads in the movie, and I thought she did a great job acting.

MIKE GIULIANO:

Yeah, thank you for saying all that because-- and actually, with our podcast, we have been following Olivia Wilde-- Booksmart in 2019, her directorial debut, and then the second film she directed, Don't Worry Darling, in 2022, which doesn't work as well, I think. But still, the fact that she is that rare example of an actor who now is also directing, and she goes fluidly from one to the other.

And in this case, of course, she's the director and also one of the stars. And one of the advantages, I think, of that kind of actor-- is it slash or hyphen? I don't know-- actor/director. I think one of the advantages is that she worked-- as an actor, she works well with actors. She gives them a generous lead. So to give the setup here, if you watch The Invite, it's important to remember that it's based on a Spanish film, which itself was based on a play. It's worth knowing that just in the sense that it's very theatrical.

It's very confined and claustrophobic. It's essentially all going to take place in one apartment. So if you want action adventure, this is not the place to go. The action adventure is all verbal here. And so it's deliberately stagey that way. And that's not going to be to all tastes because it's really kind of confining. But in terms of that confinement and how well she works with the actors-- she plays, of course, one of the leads. This is an apartment in San Francisco. And her character, Angela, is married to Joe, played by Seth Rogan.

Now, they have a very contentious marriage, and it's interesting. Just, the bickering back and forth is really uncomfortable at times because it's so true to life in terms of the things people actually do bicker about, and yet they're together. They have a teen daughter who's alluded to. It's pretty much just the parents here. So Angela and Joe have upstairs neighbors who at the moment I'll just say are rather noisy.

[chuckles]

And the upstairs neighbors are Piña, played by Penelope Cruz, and Hawk, played by Columbia's own Edward Norton. And what I found interesting here was that these are four-- and so it's essentially a dinner party invitation, Angela and Joe-- really, Angela-- inviting the upstairs neighbors to come down for dinner, and how that goes as an evening. So there's a lot about etiquette and lack of etiquette, if you will.

What I found interesting was the fact that these are four very different characters. They're in their own orbit, their own universe. And correspondingly, the actors all seem to have a different performance style here. And that might hurt some other films, like where's the consistency? But here I thought, no, it's like, sometimes you'll meet a married couple where she's like this, and he's like that. And you think, how did they ever get together? What holds them together? And here everybody is just on their own wavelength.

And without spoiling anything in terms of the story itself, as it goes along, I'll just say that I was always interested in it. It really held my attention. But scene by scene, there are some scenes I found more convincing than others. Olivia Wilde as a director can be heavy-handed. Don't Worry Darling, I thought, suffered from that. There are some scenes here that are a bit on the nose in terms of dialogue or just seemed a little heavy or maybe borderline unconvincing, other scenes that work really well.

You'd have to do that scene-by-scene analysis. But for me, not everything worked further into the story. But if it holds my interest, and it does, I can only complain to some extent because I'm alert. That's the word I like to use for a film like this. You're always wondering, well, what's his motive? Or what's she going to do? Why did he say that? All those nagging little questions that they have are our questions, too. So with that, let me turn it over to you for further armchair psychoanalysis.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

Well, one of the things that I noticed, I thought 'that's just an interesting detail'-- I don't know if anybody else picked up on this-- but early on in the movie, Olivia Wilde's character changes her blouse. And she changes into a blouse that's the exact color of the paint on the wall.

[chuckles]

So she almost disappears into the wall. It's like she's the apartment. And Seth Rogen tells her, oh, that's a nice blouse. Looks good on you, or something like that. And I couldn't help but think, wanting her maybe to blend into the background? I just thought it was such an interesting clothing choice.

I will say, I-- it reminded me of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and a little bit of Bob, Ted, Carol and Alice. And I was a little confused about the layout of the apartment because Penelope Cruz and Edward Norton are supposed to be their upstairs neighbors. And yet there's a key moment where you are shown that they can look through a window as if they're across from them instead of above them.

MIKE GIULIANO:

Yeah, I was struck by that, too and I don't know what to make of it there in terms of layout. But to your earlier point, it's one of the strengths of the film actually, is in terms of, even though you're essentially confined to the one apartment-- and by the way, this is an apartment that he, the Joe character, had inherited from his parents. Joe teaches at a sort of second-rate music conservatory. His life's never gone where he wants it to go, and so on. So there's that disgruntlement.

But the fact that the apartment itself, the set decoration, the decor, everything, you're saying there, is not incidental or secondary. It's really a crucial point. How are they dressed? How is the apartment dressed, if you will? There's a lot of thought that goes into that. In terms of the dynamics of it, you're absolutely right. People writing about this film have identified Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Bob and Carol and Ted and Alice. It's in that territory. It's not as strong as those films, but it's in that territory.

Another film I would mention actually, within their own filmographies, Seth Rogen did a film in 2014 called Neighbors. And this is where he's a suburban dad character, and he's got some frat guys, but that interaction here because in this film, too, he does have a quasi "verging on middle age" quality as a character-- disgruntled, not particularly friendly, and so on. And I thought that Seth Rogen did a really good job with that, just showing that sort of ennui, that kind of boredom, that just-- you can't even put a word on it sometimes-- unhappiness that he can bring to a character here.

And the fact that Angela, Joe's partner, Angela, she's got a really sharp tongue. She really whips into him. And sometimes he verbally fights back. And that's really interesting because, again, it's that real-life quality of you're uncomfortable watching it because this is like a real couple arguing back and forth.

And then what really makes it funny-- and it's not always ha-ha funny, but just queasy funny-- is that the upstairs neighbors-- Penelope Cruz, of course, is a terrific screen presence. I mean, she's a really good actor. But just as a screen presence, wow, she holds the screen. And here she plays a therapist.

[chuckles]

And there's a lot to analyze here. But she really has fun with the role.

And then Edward Norton's role of Hawk, he's a former firefighter. He's a bit of a mystery as a character initially, and you learn a few things along the way. But Norton does a really good job with that because there are places where he's ingratiating and nice and just good company, but then a little bit of an edge sometimes. And I like the way-- he's sort of a slippery character that way. And I like that because they don't know much about the upstairs neighbors, just that they make a lot of noise at night.

[chuckles]

And so it's a process of discovery for them and for us. So even though, scene by scene, it didn't always work for me particularly well further in, again, I just kept watching. The word I keep using is "alert." I wanted to hear the next argument.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

I kind of want to see the movie that it was based on.

MIKE GIULIANO:

I haven't seen it either, I confess. It's a Spanish film. The People Upstairs came out about, hm, six years ago, which itself was based on a play. And again, it has those theatrical origins. And I think it's probably best that it respects that deliberate claustrophobia. It doesn't make the usual movie mistake of, let's have them go outside and get in the car. They can have an argument in the car. And San Francisco, too, right? It's photogenic. They can have an argument in the car.

It's better for a piece like this to be a chamber of comedy. I mean, it's a rather disturbing comedy at times, but I think you need to keep-- the apartment you describe so well, and the costuming and clothing there, I think it would be distracting if it got outside of that. As to the configuration of it, you're right. I wasn't always entirely sure how did the apartments relate to each other that way. But I didn't fuss over that particularly. It's just, it's four characters interacting in the same room, basically.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

So would you give it a recommendation or not?

MIKE GIULIANO:

A qualified recommendation because, again, these are really interesting actors, and they have a lot of fun with the roles. And again, the reason it's qualified for me is I think while it can be a bit heavy-handed with the material, the screenplay is actually by Will McCormack and Rashida Jones. But within the screenplay and her treatment of it, at times it strikes me as kind of heavy or forcing material, like you would in an argument, like, well, would she really say that? Or would it go to that?

And some of those might be quibbles, but quibbles add up over time. They accumulate. And so there are enough of those further into it where I was a little bit of a doubter in terms of the plausibility or the this or the that of it. But again, that's where it's a fun film to argue over if somebody else is also seen it and you want to talk about it scene by scene.

MARIE WESTHAVER:

Yeah, I agree. I would recommend it, but that's partly because I think it's a good third film after Booksmart and Don't Worry Darling. And next time she comes out with something, I'll be the first one to see what she does next. But that does bring us to the end of this episode. Don't forget to check out our others at atmhcc.podbean.com. And we'll see you next time At the Movies.

MIKE GIULIANO:

See you then.

[cheerful piano music]

Outro

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The Odyssey & The Invite