Check this out: there maybe wasn't a worse A-list cast for Odysseus alive and working than Matt Damon. There is absolutely no aspect of guile. Of reckless self creation. Of wild creative force. Of microdosing getting high on your own supply. The man can't even effectively lie to himself, much less to others?
To me the allure of Odysseus, and one of his great unique powers, is his ability to make EVERYONE feel like he's their friend. He can land on any shore, speak to any king, and to a man they'll come away feeling like: Odysseus understands. "You can talk to me (=you can listen to me)." THAT'S what true persuasive power looks like. It's Odysseus they send to negotiate with Achilles, sullen in his tent, and Achilles makes a special point of saying "fuck all of them and I hope they die, but know I have nothing against you, buddy." In a real way that I'm sure people have written papers about, it's arguable that Gatsby is one of the closest literary successors to Odysseus, in no small part bc he sits on a throne of lies, but you kind of love him for it—you even love the lies—bc of the way HE can uniquely make YOU feel. That's the only reason a character like this can survive & thrive the way he does. You have to fill in the blanks. This is Odysseus's great power to ME:
He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.
This is, by definition, the polar opposite of Matt Damon's entire self-created public persona, bc Matt Damon is defined by his smarminess. He somehow manages to feel "ivory tower" without even being in the ivory tower. He attempts to isolate you with his unique accrued wisdom as an Actor who is so very and unusually thoughtful, and it's especially painful to actual knowers bc they know there's nothing THERE. There's just nothing to him imho. Matt Damon has never once said something that made me feel he Understands a goddamn thing, in any general or specific sense—much less that he understands ME. I swear to god his best role of all time, in terms of his character's personality aligning with my impression of his true self, was fucking LaBoeuf in True Grit. It's some kind of miserable irony that he's probably jorking it every night to being cast as Odysseus—ah yes, my actorly Wisdom has earned me this—when the true Odysseuses are lovably chewing up the scenery in Galaxy Quest. And yeah, I'll name names. Sam Rockwell could have been a great Odysseus. Gary Oldman could have been a great Odysseus. He's exceptionally hard to cast, but not impossible.
tldr: Imagine willingly turning off your TV and self-selected streaming services (=bards) and asking Matt Damon to recount his life's story for you in over a period of multiple days in your living room (=court); imagine what the lived experience of THAT would feel like. Now imagine asking Sam Rockwell to do the same.
Anyways, that's all just my incredibly informed and correct Opinion. It's the discourse around this blighted ass movie that I'm going to have to self entomb like a frog or beetle in cool insensate mud to avoid. God, on reddit it's already begun. The trolls and bots eat hearty. Chris Nolan. easy pete you son of a bitch there isn't a sign on this earth that could deliver you from my fury
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