People generally take “The Odyssey” as a story of heroic homecoming: Odysseus won the Trojan War, and after coming through countless hardships, he finally made it back to Ithaca. While Christopher Nolan’s adaption The Odyssey (2026) offers a different perspective, he questions the very idea of victory. The film doesn’t really follow a chronological narrative, throughout the film, the audience is constantly reminded that the so-called “victory” may actually be the moment when the consequences of the war truly begin to emerge: Odysseus indeed left Troy, but the war accompanies him to the end.
The twist first comes in the cinematic portrayal of the Trojan War victory. The Trojan Horse is generally regarded as evidence of Odysseus’ wisdom. However, the war itself is built on deception: the Achaeans pretended to withdraw and disguised the Trojan Horse as a present for Athena, using the Trojans’ trust in this sacred object to enter the city. No doubt the Trojan Horse is a brilliant military tactic, but what the film wants to show us is that, when trust, gifts and even the gods can be used as weapons, war has already destroyed the basic order that sustains human relationships.
And the burning, killing, and looting that followed the entry into the city, as well as the profanation of Athena’s statue, further shake the heroic narrative of “a triumphant victory”. The Achaeans did win the war, but without honor, und they, as victors, also didn’t achieve true relief. Even if we don’t simply interpret every disaster that Odysseus and his crew encounter afterwards as a “punishment” from the gods, the whole journey back home still feels like the consequence of repeated backfire of their triumph in war: All the ships were gradually wiped out, and his crews died one by one, leaving Odysseus alone at sea, unable to reach the home he believed he could return to directly after helping Agamemnon win the war.
Therefore, the wandering in the film is not only a series of tests overcome by the hero; what truly prolonged is the war itself. The Trojan War lasted almost a decade, and Odysseus’ journey home lasted another decade. When Odysseus left home, his son was only a baby; when he returned, his son had grown up. What the war took away was not only lives on the battlefield; it also swallowed the time a family should have shared. The son had to grow up without his father’s guidance, while the wife could do nothing but wait in silence. Even when Odysseus finally made it home, he himself was no longer the man who had left for the Trojan War.
And this is exactly the cruelest part of “homecoming”. One can set foot on one’s homeland again, yet can never return to the life that was left behind. Twenty years have changed Odysseus, Penelope, Telemachus and the whole Ithaca. Although the war seemed to happen in distant Troy, it had long since entered their family: The war existed in the form of the father’s absence, the wife’s waiting, the son’s growing up, and the disorder of the family. Odysseus went to war believing he was protecting his world. Yet when he finally returned, the world he had wanted to protect had already undergone an irreversible change shaped by the war.
In this case, the film also redefines the hero.
Odysseus’ wisdom helped him become one of the few who truly made it home, but it still failed to spare him from paying the cost of the war. Agamemnon also won the war, but was killed after he returned home; so were Odysseus’ crew. Now, triumph and destruction are no longer opposites; they have become intertwined as two phases of the same process: The war first honored the hero, then gradually stripped that honor away through endless wandering, untimely death, and broken families.
This reminds me of the TV series This Is Us: Jack returned home after the Vietnam War. Although the war had ended both chronologically and geographically, it still remained in his body, his memory, his silence, and his family relationships. He simply brought the war back into his daily life, even though those around him could hardly perceive it. Odysseus’ decade of wandering and Jack’s post-war life are, of course, two very different stories, but both made me realize that political and historical narratives can declare the end of a war, while individuals continue to suffer for many years afterward.
The film therefore also speaks to our own reality. Even in the twenty-first century, wars are still ongoing around the world. We are used to describing war in terms of victory, defeat, ceasefire, and its end, as if once the battlefield falls silent, everything could return to the way it was before. Yet for those who have truly experienced war, its end merely changes the form in which it continues to linger—in the body, in memory, in the family, across generations, and even in one’s understanding of homeland and everyday life.
The film ultimately leaves us with one question: when one wins a war, can what remains still be called victory?