‘The Odyssey’ should have done better by this character

Samantha Morton as Circe in a scene from “The Odyssey” (2026). In director Christopher Nolan’s “dark, succinct telling,” “Circe is an obstacle [Odysseus] must overcome, just like the other women in the film have very specific ways to round out the hero’s tale of triumph,” the Times’ Maya Phillips writes. (Universal Pictures)

By MAYA PHILLIPS

When the men under the charge of the brave Odysseus arrive at Circe’s home in Christopher Nolan’s “The Odyssey,” the film shifts from seafaring epic to body horror. Circe, played with rawness and mystery by Samantha Morton, is a witch who turns the men into swine, but fear not — she’ll soon be outsmarted by Matt Damon’s late-arriving Odysseus, like all the other monsters he’s encountered on his way back home. She is just another obstacle to be vanquished on the hero’s journey.

That’s not exactly how things unfold in the original text. When Homer introduces Circe, she’s described as a beautiful, enchanting woman singing and weaving at a loom — drawing a parallel to Penelope, the faithful wife of Odysseus who is forever weaving as she waits for her husband to return home.

Circe’s domicile is a kind of palace where she reigns supreme. In Emily Wilson’s 2017 translation — the first into English by a woman — it is a place of “polished stones, on high foundations,” where nymphs carry fancy cloths, gold cups and silver bowls for guests and where wild animals fawn around her like house pets. She was a memorable presence in the most enduring of tales, a character as wily as the hero, and more knowledgeable. This latest portrayal feels like a particularly disheartening disservice to one of the earliest examples of a powerful, sexually autonomous woman in literature.

Many translations refer to Circe as a goddess who executes her transformations with a potion and the flick of a wand; that’s a far cry from the gruesome, torturous process on-screen now. As the men gorge themselves on the food she serves, she stretches and molds their heads like putty, sticking her hands into their mouths and shaping their faces into pig snouts. It’s horrific, and the movie seems to cast it as unwarranted, as if it’s so unlikely that a woman living alone, accosted by a group of soldiers we’ve seen loot and kill in another city, would feel threatened.

This Circe seems cruel and crazed. In Homer’s telling, Odysseus becomes so enamored of her that she becomes a kind of substitute wife. In the story, when Odysseus goes to Circe’s home to save his men, he uses an antidote given to him by the gods, threatens her with his sword and then sleeps with her. When she changes Odysseus’ soldiers back, Homer notes that they’re even more handsome than before, and are bathed in oil and dressed in nice clothes. Odysseus and his men spend a year living happily with Circe and her nymph servant girls, as Wilson writes in her translation: “Then every day / for a whole year we feasted there on meat / and sweet strong wine.” In fact, after that year of leisure it’s Odysseus’ men who bring up that they should probably get back on the road to Ithaca; only then does it seem to occur to Odysseus that they should leave their cozy vacation spot and now welcoming host.

Of course every adaptation offers its own twist on her. This has been true dating back millenniums, to early classics writers including Ovid and Hesiod. In some versions, Circe bears Odysseus’ children; in others she is an obsessive, vengeful predator. Contemporary authors such as Madeline Miller reclaim the character as more than a brief detour in Odysseus’ journey and offer a more sympathetic, well-rounded version of her.

Over the years Circe’s transformations of Odysseus’ men have been read in various ways depending on the cultural context and sexual politics of the time: as a commentary on etiquette and social behavior, as a philosophical critique on the inherently beastly nature of men, as a misogynist cautionary tale against a sexually liberated woman. One can often determine the politics and perspectives of an “Odyssey” adaptation by how Circe is depicted.

So what does that say about Nolan’s dark, succinct telling? In this film of majesty and scope, of star power and visual appeal, Circe helps show how Nolan’s “Odyssey” ultimately takes the epic at face value, reducing it to terms the director is most comfortable with: Odysseus is a man burdened by the weight of his brilliance. Circe is an obstacle he must overcome, just like the other women in the film have very specific ways to round out the hero’s tale of triumph. Calypso’s role is to trap Odysseus. Athena’s to act as his (mostly silent) conscience. Helen and Clytemnestra are simply disloyal women at the periphery of Odysseus’ journey. And Odysseus’ faithful wife, Penelope, isn’t shown doing much of anything, but gets an adamant speech about her queenly autonomy to telegraph her as a more modern, empowered hero-wife. None are fulfilling, but none feel as dismissive as the evil witch treatment of Circe.

At the end of the day, this is a man’s story of greatness. Even in Odysseus’ questionable moments, there’s never any question that he is still the noble warrior, the honorable leader. As for the women — the lovers, the betrayers, the goddess and, of course, the witch — they’re no more than the trimmings on our hero’s armor.