The subtlety by which a romantic moment in a Christopher Nolan film stays with me isn’t something I’ve written about often. (There’s the ending of The Dark Knight Rises and a good portion of Memento, yes. I could even talk at length about a specific scene in Inception.) But right now, I can’t stop thinking about one line in The Odyssey as it replays in my head, over and over again in a sea of sensational dialogue that moved me to my core. (More on that later when I can actually sit with the movie and take proper notes.) Yet, what I don’t need to take notes on because it’s seared in my brain is Anne Hathaway’s delivery of “I want Odysseus.”
Because it’s a scene like that and a delivery with that much depth that encompasses not only what a lasting love looks like but what it feels like. Because her grief and pain are a puncture wound so deep, I felt it to my core with the full-body chills that moment evokes. I have no idea what it’s like not to see the man I love for 20 years. To hold on, with everything in me, with the belief that he’ll return. Yet, for a moment, her scream is so visceral, I felt it. Like a jolt of something, striking at the center of my chest, it took my breath away.
Anne Hathaway is among the greatest actresses of our generation, and moments like this showcase why. How, with a single sentence, she not only conveys Penelope’s innermost desire, but her entire heart. The depth with which she’s continued to cherish her husband in the 20 years he’s been gone. The detail that she couldn’t even bear to fathom taking another suitor because all she’s ever wanted was Odysseus. Her husband. The true King of Ithaca. It floors me.
As someone who proudly calls Nolan her favorite director, he’s typically not the person I associate with my favorite genre: romance. And so, I wasn’t really expecting much with Odysseus and Penelope’s relationship in The Odyssey because it’s not something that moved me in the poem as much as it should’ve, yet Nolan, Anne Hathaway, and Matt Damon might’ve delivered one of the most romantic relationships of 2026. Maybe ever.
The third act is a masterclass in more ways than one, and the fact that we can feel the tethers between Odysseus and Penelope is one of the big reasons why. The payoff is insurmountable. Awe-inspiring. The way that every person’s breath hitched the moment he strings the bow is a gift in and of itself, but the look on her face that tells us everything we need is my personal kryptonite. A stranger, sure, but you can’t convince me she doesn’t know. No, she feels it. He came back. And there, in a darked space, after a long, long battle, a man sits in front of his wife and tells her about everything that’s plagued him in the last 20 years, reminding her, and by extension, us, of the fact that she and their son are the only things he could never regret.
There’s an intimacy in that moment that feels so raw; I’ll never forget the way I watched it: at the edge of my seat, heart in my throat the entire time. The Odyssey is, in more ways than one, a story about a man’s deep-seated regrets, yet it’s also a paradigm of steadfast loyalty.
Both his and hers. The fact that he isn’t tempted by Calypso in this version is everything. The fact that she can’t stomach the thought of another suitor is remarkable. The third act brings Odysseus and Penelope’s loyalty to life in a tangible manner, but the scene of her declaring “I want Odysseus” etches her desire for him into the very bullseye he meets with the bow upon his return. It makes their conversation all the more rich because, in his transparency, both their walls are down, like the ones in Troy.
He and his men tarnished something sacred, but what he kept intact, guarded in a way nothing else could be, is his undying love for his wife. There’s something so rewarding about witnessing that scene as a romance author because it adds layers to their love in a way that feels otherworldly, almost. Untouchable. You can see it in her eyes, in every scene where another man is before her: she doesn’t want any of them. It makes the texts we write all the more incredible because we have mythology to cement that from the dawn of time, nothing is more beautiful than our ability to love another person, with everything in us.
She proposes the trial knowing with every bone in her body and within all the sacred corridors of her heart that no man will be able to master the task the way her husband could, and if that’s not the most beautiful indication of loyalty in its most indestructible form, then I don’t know what is. Because her knowledge is her love.
To love someone to the extent that you wait twenty years for them. Want them, still, with everything in you. Believe in them. Cherish them without fail. That’s why romance novels are such a safe space—they make readers believe in this type of love. In the possibility of a forever that defies the gods, all logic, and everything in between. The Odyssey isn’t just a story about a man trying to make it back home, but it’s about the people waiting for him: Penelope, Telemachus, Argos.
It’s about a woman, holding on with all her might, knowing deep in her bones that if her husband were dead, she’d feel it. She’d be the first to know he wasn’t coming home. There’s often more tragedy in Greek mythology than glimmers of hope, yet Nolan’s version of The Odyssey not only gives us the most intimate version of Odysseus and Penelope, but the most tender. Sometimes, the most romantic thing isn’t a kiss or a hug; it’s the loyalty between a man and a woman, and the depths of hell they’ll cross for each other. Nothing could’ve stopped Odysseus from going back home, and the fact that we can see how her love strengthens him. She could’ve found another husband; he gave her the choice to do so before he left, but the fact that she doesn’t? Breathtaking. There’s no other word for it.
What are your thoughts on Odysseus and Penelope’s love story in The Odyssey? Let us know in the comments below.
First Featured Image Credit: ©Universal Pictures