Tom Holland’s ‘Dad’ Line in The Odyssey Trailer Has the Internet Divided

Two thousand years of mythology, a $250 million budget, the greatest living director, and an all-star cast that reads like the Avengers roster — and what has the internet decided to focus on? One three-letter word.

The new full-length trailer for Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey landed this week, and it’s genuinely breathtaking — sweeping IMAX vistas, the Trojan Horse rendered in fire and shadow, a glimpse of the Cyclops lurking in a dark cave, and a cast so stacked it almost feels unfair. But within hours of the trailer dropping, the conversation online had narrowed sharply to a single moment: Tom Holland, playing Odysseus’s son Telemachus, looking dead-serious into the camera and declaring, “My dad is coming home.”

Not “my father.” Not “my king.” Dad.

The line — delivered in a fully American accent, in a film set in 1200 BCE — hit viewers like a record scratch. “First time hearing ‘DAD’ in a historical epic film,” one YouTube commenter wrote. Another called it something “from a sitcom.” On X, one user posted: “‘Dad’? It’s Father. Modern terms have no place in this film” — though the discourse there was considerably more colorful in places, with at least one person admitting the word made them “scream in horror.”

The line doesn’t exist in isolation, either. It comes as a direct response to Robert Pattinson’s character Antinous, who leans into Telemachus and sneers: “You’re pining for a daddy you didn’t even know, like some sniveling bastard.” So there are two daddy references in quick succession, and the internet caught both of them.

One particularly sharp fan on YouTube compared Holland’s delivery to a very different famous son, writing that “‘My dad is coming home’ gave ‘My father will hear about this’ vibes” — a Harry Potter Draco Malfoy reference that somehow made perfect sense.

Robert Pattinson Is Winning the Internet Anyway

Here’s the thing: even the people most bothered by the word “dad” seem to agree that Robert Pattinson is doing something genuinely special with Antinous. His delivery of that line — cold, contemptuous, precise — has become one of the most-discussed moments in the trailer for all the right reasons.

“Say whatever you want, but I think Robert Pattinson is pretty solid casting for Antinous,” wrote @TristanPudde on X, adding that the character’s irritating quality is exactly the point — you’re supposed to hate him. @MovieTimePicks went further: “The way Robert Pattinson can deliver a line that is both a biological fact and a soul-crushing insult is why he’s the best in the business right now.”

Antinous, for those whose Greek mythology is a little rusty, is the most aggressive of the suitors who have descended on Ithaca in Odysseus’s absence, vying for Penelope’s hand — and, by extension, the throne. In the trailer, he tells Penelope flatly, “I want you to choose me,” and when she insists Odysseus is returning, he gives her a slow smile and says, “No, he’s not.” It’s genuinely unsettling. And then he’s seen unsheathing a blade.

Anne Hathaway’s Penelope, meanwhile, is clearly not the passive, weeping wife of some adaptations. She shuts Antinous down cold: “Ithaca’s king is coming back.” The trailer also shows her in tears later, admitting “that world is gone” — which raises some interesting questions about where the story goes.

Everything Else the New Trailer Reveals

Beyond the dialogue debate, there’s a lot to take in. The trailer opens with Charlize Theron as Calypso — the mythological nymph who holds Odysseus captive on her island for seven years — demanding, “Tell me what you remember.” Her scenes with Matt Damon’s Odysseus, who asks her to help him get home, have a haunted, otherworldly quality that feels unlike anything in Nolan’s previous work.

The Trojan Horse makes an appearance, shown in silhouette standing upright on two legs — a unique visual choice — with a soldier rappelling from its belly as troops storm a fortress. It’s a bold image, and a notable one, given that the Trojan Horse barely features in Homer’s original text. Nolan is clearly working from a broader canvas than the poem alone.

The Cyclops Polyphemus is teased in a dark cave sequence, emerging slowly from shadow with its single eye positioned high on the forehead. It’s creepy and effective. There’s also a glimpse of the massive whirlpool caused by the sea monster Charybdis, as Odysseus and his men row desperately against the current.

John Leguizamo appears as the servant Eumaeus — almost unrecognizable — in a scene where Telemachus confides in him about whether his father will ever return. And yes, there is a puppy. There is also, based on the imagery, a dead dog later in the film, which suggests that Odysseus’s loyal hound Argos — one of the most quietly devastating moments in the original poem — will make an appearance.

Zendaya (as Athena), Mia Goth, Lupita Nyong’o, Jon Bernthal, Himesh Patel, Elliot Page, Benny Safdie, and Travis Scott are all in the film but largely absent from this trailer, which means there’s still plenty being held back.

Is the Backlash Missing the Point?

The “dad” controversy sits inside a larger conversation about Nolan’s creative choices: the American accents across the board (including from London-born Holland and Pattinson, who both speak in nonspecific American dialects), the anachronistic-looking armor on some soldiers, and the general decision to treat a 3,000-year-old myth as a living, contemporary story rather than a museum piece.

SlashFilm pointed out that the accents extend beyond individual word choices — at another point in the trailer, Odysseus rallies his troops with a very American “Let’s go!” — and argued that the dialect strips the story of some of its grandeur. Others have noted that the armor on Agamemnon (Benny Safdie) and the giants that Odysseus encounters looks more medieval than Bronze Age.

But the counterargument is hard to dismiss: The Odyssey is a fantasy. It features gods, a one-eyed giant, a sea monster, and a nymph who offers immortality. Demanding period accuracy from a story that was never meant to be historically accurate in the first place is a strange hill to die on. And Nolan himself has been clear that this is his interpretation of the myth, not a reconstruction of it. On The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, he described Homer as “the George Lucas of his time” and the epic as “the Marvel of its day” — direct, mythological storytelling designed to make audiences feel that gods could walk among them.

He’s also confirmed the film will be told in Nolan’s signature non-linear style, which actually mirrors Homer’s original structure — the poem begins in medias res, deep into the journey, and works backward and forward through time. That’s very much Nolan’s territory.

The film was shot across multiple global locations, with four months at sea — a decision that visibly shaped the footage. “It’s vast and terrifying and wonderful and benevolent, as the conditions shift,” Nolan said of filming on open water. “We really wanted to capture how hard those journeys would have been for people. And the leap of faith that was being made in an unmapped, uncharted world.”

It’s also the first narrative feature film ever shot entirely on IMAX cameras — a genuine milestone — with Nolan’s longtime cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Interstellar, Oppenheimer) behind the lens and Ludwig Göransson, who won an Oscar for Oppenheimer‘s score, handling the music. The early reaction to the trailer’s soundtrack has been enthusiastic.

Whether “dad” belongs in ancient Ithaca is, ultimately, a question that will be answered on July 17. But if Nolan’s track record means anything — and it really does — there’s probably a reason for it. Or at the very least, it’ll be the most debated three-letter word in cinema this year.