Troy was ahead of its time, and Nolan should take notes

After conquering the box office with Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan returns this summer with The Odyssey, a mythic epic that has already attracted bad-faith criticism over perceived "woke" casting. Many detractors have pointed to Troy as the supposedly correct model for adapting ancient Greek mythology, but a closer look at that 2004 film shows how much of the conversation then — and now — misses its subtler qualities.

On first release Troy was discussed mostly for scale: massive armies, star-studded casting and big set pieces. Some critics argued the film sidesteps the Greek gods and flattens its heroes into action-movie archetypes, yet Brad Pitt’s Achilles was repeatedly singled out for an emotional complexity that now reads as unusually modern: swagger mixed with vulnerability.

The film presents Achilles as both undefeatable in combat and quietly driven by intimacy, grief and an awareness of mortality.

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