Author Joyce Carol Oates supported Christopher Nolan's film "The Odyssey" after Emily Wilson, a translator, wrote a widely shared review that criticized the movie.
Oates wrote on X that instead of discussing different views on Homer in a respectful way, Wilson used harsh language similar to that of MAGA supporters, attacking someone with different ideas.
She said, "One would expect a translator, who is devoted to a text, to be a little more thoughtful and respectful toward others who are also acting in good faith, just as she claims she is."
Wilson, who translated a 2017 version of Homer's "The Odyssey," criticized Nolan's film in a review for the London Review of Books.
She said the movie lacked "psychological, emotional, political, and ethical depth" and had "nothing convincing to say."
In her review, Wilson wrote, "I had hoped that Nolan's connection to these Homeric themes might lead him to new creative heights and enable him to create more believable characters.
But 'The Odyssey' features his usual mix of grandiosity and superficiality...the film's vision is too confused, its characters too underdeveloped, to deliver what it half-promises in terms of big ideas—although it is very good at conveying big explosions and big giants."
She later added, "The writing is terrible.
None of the characters has a believable reason for their actions or words.There are no sex scenes, and all the food looks terrible."
Nolan had previously praised Wilson's translation of the ancient text.
He told Empire that he used the opening line of her version, "Tell me about a complicated man," as a guide when developing Matt Damon's character as Odysseus.
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