When most people think of the Odyssey, their minds probably return to high school English class, where they may have studied Homer's epic poem and its prequel The Iliad. But the ancient Greek work has influenced more stories than anyone could possibly imagine, including filmmaking brothers Joel and Ethan Coen's O Brother, Where Art Thou? The connections are loose — after all, the film is set in 1937 in Mississippi, not Bronze Age Greece — but they're there.
The story centers around three convicts who've fled from a chain gang: Ulysses Everett McGill (George Clooney), Pete Hogwallop (John Turturro), and Delmar O'Donnell (Tim Blake Nelson). Delmar is the affable dimwit of the group and says some of the film's best lines ("Well, the two of us was fixin' to fornicate!"). It's hard to imagine why a man like him would have been arrested in the first place, but his relationships with Everett and Pete are what's important, so it doesn't really matter.
As a fun side note, the songs the trio sings as spur-of-the-moment band The Soggy Bottom Boys are all lip-synched by the actors, but Nelson really sings "In the Jailhouse Now."
