Christopher Nolan’s God-Haunted <em>Odyssey</em>

Toward the end of Homer’s Odyssey, Odysseus and Penelope finally see each other after 20 years apart. Odysseus, disguised as “an ancient old man” by the goddess Athena, tells Penelope that her husband will return to kill the suitors who have tormented her. “Not one will avoid his death and destruction,” he says. This is Homer’s protagonist: wily, aided by a god, and eager for revenge—reflective of a culture that prized honor, strength, and fealty to a set of interventionist deities. This is…