THE RETURN

THREE STARS Tired and ragged, Odysseus returns to Ithaca to find there's a lot of work to be done.

PERIOD DRAMA UK #THERETURN Starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche

Director Uberto Pasolini (STILL LIFE) isn’t extravagant. Gods, monsters, grand speeches – all stripped away from Homer’s Odyssey. It’s pared back to a bare-bones tale of a man washed ashore and the land, and people, he must move through to reclaim his place. In theory, it’s a shrewd approach. In practice, it leaves THE RETURN perched between stark realism and mythic grandeur, never quite embracing either.

Pasolini begins with Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes, transformed into sinewy grit) emerging from the sea, ragged and unrecognised after twenty years away at Troy. He’s befriended by a swineherd, ignored by villagers, mocked by suitors who have overrun his house. Queen Penelope (Juliette Binoche) meanwhile fends them off with her nightly weaving ruse, guarded by her son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer).

Recognition, when it comes, is slow and painful: an old dog, a loyal servant, and finally a wife who isn’t sure who stands before her. It’s here that THE RETURN is most effective – as an intimate character study that argues these old stories still have resonance. In choosing to focus on this overlooked corner of Homer’s epic, Pasolini makes a strong case that the past isn’t so distant after all.

Anchoring the film are two magnetic leads. Fiennes and Binoche give bold, unflinching performances that keep you watching even when the story drifts into longueurs. Their reunion scene – played largely in shadow, with faces doing most of the talking – is hauntingly effective, lending the film its emotional core. 

What keeps things afloat is its visual poetry. Stark, windswept, unvarnished – Pasolini never lets us forget that life on Ithaca a couple of thousand years ago would have been hard, not heroic. There’s a quiet grandeur in the mud and stone, the worn costumes and austere palette. Yet the absence of spectacle, while admirable, also robs the story of fire. This is one of those rare films where you might wish for more blood, not less.

The result is a long slow burn that some will find mesmerising, others soporific. Despite considerable talent giving their considerable best, THE RETURN remains caught between austerity and excess, art-house and snooze-fest, never quite settling into the groove it seeks. Still, as an intimate character study powered by star wattage and stark vision, it makes a case that these old stories remain not only timeless, but timely. Gorgeous, frustrating, and just enough.

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