Best Of: ‘Odyssey’ translator Emily Wilson / Actor Jon Bernthal

This is Ira Glass. On this American life, we tell stories about when things change. Like for this guy David, whose entire life took a sharp, unexpected, and very unpleasant turn. And it did take me a while to realize that it's basically because the monkey pressed the button. That's right.

Because the monkey pressed the button. Surprising stories every week, wherever you get your podcasts. From WHYY in Philadelphia, this is Fresh Air Weekend. I'm Dave Davies. Christopher Nolan's new film, The Odyssey, is a box office hit, but classic scholar Emily Wilson, who translated Homer's poem from the original text, says the film script is abysmally written, lacking in emotional depth and character development.

And she adds, there are no sex scenes, and all the food looks horrible. We need to have a protagonist with detailed believable motivation. So the fact that these desires seem to be stripped from Odysseus. He doesn't seem to want food, doesn't seem to want sex, what does he want?

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