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The Odyssey · written by Christopher Nolan · 2026
Scene 19 of 199 · ≈ 1 min on screen · Act one
Twenty years after leaving for the Trojan War, Odysseus fights his way home across a hostile sea only to find his kingdom overrun — and must return in disguise to reclaim his wife, his son, and his throne from the suitors laying siege to his house.
Ithaca frozen in a decade of waiting: Penelope weaving, the suitors feasting, Telemachus unheard.
Flashback: Eumaeus recalls Agamemnon conscripting Ithaca's young men for Troy by lottery, and Odysseus's grief at the cost to their fathers.
Present: Eumaeus explains Odysseus drew Antinous into the war effort out of sympathy for the fathers, knowing it would be a long war.
Telemachus climbs the stairs to the screen to see his mother.
This scene
PENELOPE AT HER LOOM. She is beautiful, elegant (forties). She pauses in her weaving. Melantho and the Old Nursemaid are SEATED nearby.
TELEMACHUS
I didn’t mean to stop you.
Penelope nods at Melantho who checks there is no one beyond the screen as SHE DRAWS IT CLOSED behind Telemachus. She gives Penelope the okay.
PENELOPE
I’m in no hurry. The Elders decreed that when I finish your grandfather’s burial shroud it’ll be time to remarry.
Penelope RISES from her loom.
TELEMACHUS
Why?
She leads him out onto the terrace.