Some prominent right-wing supporters of President Donald Trump have criticized director Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of “The Odyssey” over its diverse casting. Conservative columnist David French, however, argued that those critics could learn a “small-c conservative” lesson from the film about Trump, corruption and the consequences of moral wrongdoing.

“A president enriches himself at a scale never seen before in the United States. An Epstein class of abusive libertines always seems to evade accountability for its crimes,” French wrote Sunday in The New York Times. “Government officials break the law with impunity, banking on presidential pardons to excuse their crimes — all while truth is buried under an avalanche of lies, lies that are shared with gusto by cadres of grifters and fools.”

French added, “Without saying one word about modern politics, Christopher Nolan has rebuked the spirit of the age. His retelling of ‘The Odyssey’ is an admonition: Moral transgressions always carry a consequence.”

In his column, French described Nolan’s Odysseus as a figure who is haunted both morally and practically by his decision to violate Zeus’ law. In ancient Greece, French noted, people were expected to show hospitality to guests and to behave hospitably when they were guests themselves. That reciprocal obligation, often described as xenia and associated with Zeus as protector of strangers and guests, was not merely etiquette in the world of Homer’s epics but a sacred moral order. By entering Troy concealed inside a supposedly gifted wooden horse, Odysseus and his men violated that rule, becoming the worst kind of guests: those who murder, steal and destroy everything they can.

“In the movie’s powerful third act (spoiler alert, for those who care about spoiling a modern take on an almost 3,000-year-old epic poem), Odysseus connects all the dots,” French wrote. “The Trojan War wasn’t a great victory conducted in service of a righteous cause. It was a war fought for greed and power under the pretext of fighting to bring Helen of Troy home.”

He continued, “And the Trojan Horse? Odysseus’s strategic masterstroke? In Nolan’s depiction, it is essentially a war crime — an act of subterfuge that takes advantage of ancient customs to unleash the horrifying sack of the city after Troy’s army is defeated. Odysseus is determined to get home, but he is also wracked with guilt.”

Because Odysseus committed those acts, French wrote, Nolan’s version of the Homeric poem does not end with Odysseus returning to Ithaca simply to sit on his throne. Instead, he returns “to confess, to rescue his wife from the clutches of evil men and to choose exile.” French argued from there that “The Odyssey” carries a fundamentally conservative message, despite criticism from right-wing figures including X CEO Elon Musk and Daily Wire commentator Matt Walsh over the film’s diverse casting.

“It’s a reminder of how stupid and petty much of the right has become that anyone would think this movie was ‘woke,’” French wrote. “Yes, a Black actor — Lupita Nyong’o — plays Helen of Troy, and a trans actor — Elliot Page — plays Sinon, the Greek warrior who unwittingly tricks the Trojans into accepting the Trojan Horse as a gift. But to label a movie woke simply because of the identity of the actors is to indulge in a caricatured version of the same identity politics that the right claims to loathe.”

French argued instead that “in reality, Nolan’s ‘Odyssey’ is one of the most small-c conservative movies I’ve ever seen. I can easily imagine a natural law theorist watching the movie, nodding his head and saying, ‘Yes, there are universal moral laws, and this is exactly what happens when prideful men believe they know more than God.’”

That framing puts French’s response in contrast with the online culture-war fight over casting: rather than treating the film primarily as a dispute over representation, he reads it through an older conservative vocabulary of limits, duties, guilt and accountability.

According to French, that message makes “The Odyssey” a warning for Trump and his allies, whom he described as blatantly profiting from Trump’s presidency.

“Defy the gods? Deny the dignity of your neighbor?” French wrote. “You certainly can, if you so choose. And you may prosper for a time. But the narrative arc of the movie tells us our destiny if that’s the path we choose. It turns out that there are rules for rule breakers, just as there are for everyone else, and those rules have persisted throughout human history.”

French concluded, “Here’s one, arguably the central truth of the film: Heedless people, you will pay for what you destroy.”

Liberal commentator Thom Hartmann also wrote that “The Odyssey” contains lessons for viewers willing to consider them, particularly those on the Trump right.

“When you go to see Christopher Nolan’s new epic film ‘The Odyssey’ (as Louise and I did on Saturday), you’ll be bathed in the revelation that Trump and his military lickspittles are breaking the most ancient law that created what we today call Western civilization,” Hartmann wrote. “The movie even explains Iran’s rageful response to Trump’s violations of ‘Zeus’ Law’ and tells us of the possible consequences of his illegal and morally criminal attack on that country (which had not attacked us first) as his war of choice plays out.”

As French and Hartmann both noted in their editorials, some conservatives have reacted angrily to “The Odyssey,” calling it “woke” because of Nolan’s casting choices. Nolan dismissed those criticisms as “irrelevant.”

The Daily Beast reported earlier this month, “His comments come after MAGA commentators — including X owner Elon Musk — trashed the film for months over Nolan’s choice to cast Lupita Nyong’o as Helen of Troy and trans actor Elliot Page as the Greek warrior Sinon.”

“Musk, Newsmax host Robert Finnerty, and more have slammed the film, which isn’t out until July 17, as a ‘rewriting of history’ and Nolan as ‘racist’ for casting a Black actress in a fictional Greek character’s role,” The Daily Beast continued.