2. The Odyssey: Heroism, Fame and Homecoming

And so we come to the end of the film.

Yes.

And it's quite a beautiful ending.

Telemachus, played by Tom Holland, is looking very stunning.

Yeah, and

his iron muscle tank.

Yeah, that was very pleasing.

What happens is Penelope and Odysseus, they sail off into the sunset.

And they go into exile and Telemachus takes the place as the king.

And I guess the sense is that Odysseus is so, in a way, guilt ridden and broken and feels as if he cannot take up his throne again.

And again, we have this guilty conscience.

What did you make of this sailing away into the sunset ending?

Yes, I mean, Nolan's definitely riffing off aspects of the broader epic tradition in a way.

So these other stories that are hinted at in the Odyssey, but also are kind of recorded elsewhere, of Odysseus leaving home again, right, and sailing to the west, sailing to southern Italy or whatever.

But he crucially does that on his own.

He does not take Penelope with him.

There are other sort of traditions in which Penelope... leaves Ithaca and ends up marrying Odysseus' son by another woman it's all very incestuous and etc but yeah so I suppose he's riffing off that and also the fact that there's this problematic aspect to the ending of which is that civil war basically beckons.

And this is Nolan's out.

He's kind of turned it into this sort of nice, you know, Tempest-esque kind of a happy ending, which I think, you know, I think he kind of had to do really well.

I think so.

I think so.

He had to end it in some way that was satisfying for the millions of people who are going to watch it.

So that was the film.