The Return Review

He was the hero of Homer’s epic poem, the King of Ithaca who masterminded the wooden horse of Troy, led his soldiers to victory, and then spent a whole decade finding his way home to reclaim his kingdom. In his day, Odysseus was a living legend, so you’d expect his arrival to be triumphant and celebrated, right? That’s not what you get in The Return.

Alone and washed up on a beach, Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) has found his way back to Ithaca, but nobody gives what seems to be a bedraggled tramp a second look. That anonymity helps him realise how much his home has changed in 20 years: his wife, Penelope (Juliette Binoche), is besieged by suitors demanding that she chooses a new husband, his son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) is angered by his mother’s apparent hesitancy and, without their king, the people are downtrodden and living in poverty. Already wracked with guilt over losing all his soldiers, Odysseus realises he has another, and very different, fight on his hands – to reclaim his family and his kingdom.

CHECK OUT OUR EXCLUSIVE CHAT WITH THE FILM’S DIRECTOR, UBERTO PASOLINI, HERE!

For a story that goes back centuries, the film has a contemporary quality, placing an epic in a smaller, more intimate context. This is no king returning in glory. His people don’t recognise him, he’s physically and mentally battered, unable to shake off the memories of what he saw and experienced during the Trojan Wars and, in the hands of director Uberto Pasolini, he becomes a timeless figure, embodying countless soldiers down the centuries who have suffered both during and after war. As part of his research for The Return, Pasolini studied interviews with Vietnam veterans who described their post-war experiences. Similar conversations with their families gave an insight into the effect of staying behind during war and, taken together, they bring an authenticity to a slow-burner, one that deliberately takes its time to explore not just the older, damaged Odysseus, but a Penelope who steadfastly refuses to believe her husband is dead and an angry young Telemachus who has spent his whole life without a father. He’s never seen him – until now.

It’s all told in a stripped-back style, one that totally eschews mythical monsters and glorious gods in favour of placing the responsibility for events past and present on the people concerned. There’s no excuses, no opportunity to blame them on a group of deities: they’ve made their choices, and now they’re taking a terrible toll. You only have to look at Fiennes’ tortured expression to see their result, yet even though he’s reluctant to take up arms again, the possibility is never far away, and his sinewy, scarred physique is more than capable of dealing with anything his enemies throw at him. Binoche and Plummer embody more but different suffering, with Telemachus made all the more complex by his youth and inability to live up to a man he doesn’t even know. It’s a remarkably mature performance.

Sombre and meditative in tone, The Return occasionally displays some pacing problems but its character-driven narrative and the performances that go with it always come to its rescue. The visuals are an added bonus, so natural and so pared-down that they almost defy you to notice them. It all makes for a riveting look at the universal and personal price of war, and one that eventually comes with a timely flicker of hope.

★★★★

In UK cinemas on April 11th / Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Marwen Kenzari, Claudio Santamaria / Dir: Uberto Pasolini / Modern Films / 15