For "The Odyssey," Ellen Mirojnick , opens in new tabmade more than 5,300 costumes for the film. Her goal, she's said, was "for you not to notice the costumes" at all. That's the job: a costume works when it stops looking like a costume and starts looking like the person. This one didn't cooperate. It's all over the internet now.

Pattinson plays Antinous, the worst of the suitors hanging around Penelope, and somewhere in the middle of all that spectacle there's a small gold ring on his little finger. Of course there is. He's rich and entitled and more than a little smug, and the ring says as much before he opens his mouth.

None of that meaning is old, and none of it is an accident. The pinkie ring means what it means today because costume designers decided it should, and mostly they put it on criminals. Al Capone wore one. Lucky Luciano, Meyer Lansky, Gotti. Then it moved to the screen and stayed there: Michael Corleone, Tony Soprano, Mr. White in Reservoir Dogs. There's a story, too, that the real-world version doubled as portable wealth, something your associates could pawn to bury you if it came to that.

You could reach for a nicer lineage if you wanted one. King Charles has worn a signet on his little finger since his investiture in 1969. But nobody watches Antinous and thinks of the King.