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The Odyssey · written by Christopher Nolan · 2026
Scene 23 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.
On the terrace, Penelope explains Ithaca fears attacks by mysterious "Sea People" and needs a king to raise an army.
Flashback: young Penelope and Odysseus in bed with infant Telemachus, as Odysseus explains Agamemnon's true, mercantile reason for the Trojan War.
Present: Penelope warns that without a king, Ithaca can't defend itself if the Sea People threat is real.
This scene
Telemachus FOLLOWS Penelope back to her loom...
TELEMACHUS
I could take the throne.
Penelope looks at her son with the faintest edge of scorn.
She goes to the wall, where Odysseus’s HUNTING BOW is DISPLAYED, its string wound around it. She pulls it down, THRUSTS IT AT TELEMACHUS.
PENELOPE
String it.
Telemachus takes it.
TELEMACHUS
That’s not --
PENELOPE
String it.
Telemachus UNWINDS the string, puts one end of the bow to the floor and TRIES to BEND THE BOW to hook the string on the top. With all his strength, HE CANNOT BEND THE BOW ENOUGH. Penelope takes the bow back...
TELEMACHUS
That’s not fair. You said only he could string that bow.
PENELOPE
He was happy to let others try...