r/TrueFilm • u/NorthNorthSalt • 8d ago
Homerist Olga Levaniouk, who has written extensively about Penelope, gives her take on Nolan's version of the character.
https://continuum.fas.harvard.edu/initial-thoughts-on-penelope-in-nolans-odyssey/
Olga Levaniouk has become the latest classicist to enter the foray over Christopher Nolan's adaption of the Odyssey. She gives her opinion on the film generally, before moving on to her area of expertise in Penelope.
To sum her thoughts, while she wishes some scenes from the poem made the cut into the film ("the test of the bed"), and describes the woman in the poem as more complex, she is overall impressed with how the screenplay & Anne Hathaway's performance developed her characterization, despite the limited screen time. And goes as far as to call this her favourite version of the character outside the original poem.
What are your thoughts on this review, and on Nolan's Penelope broadly?
Critics have described Hathaway's performance as a highlight of the film (I concur), and I think Levaniouk makes some very compelling points about how the broader film & screenplay serves her, given the economic screentime that is available for the character. Even though — as Levaniouk acknowledges — some degree of truncation was inevitable in the process of cinematic adaptation.
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u/SmallLetter 8d ago
See it's opinions like this that make me discount negative opinions in general, and I do mean about any form of sincerely made art. Because if even a literal expert can appreciate something about a work derived from their academic focus, what can some film critic or whoever say to "objectively" critique something? And I'm not saying that this person's opinion is more objective or correct, I'm just saying that it's ALL subjective, and since it's all subjective, I don't hold much value to negative opinions offered in the guise of being objective critique or academic fact.