The Return
The Return will satisfy fans of Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, who are the best thing about this adaptation of the closing chapters of The Odyssey
Uberto Pasolini’s adaptation of the closing chapters of The Odyssey is a quiet take on the familiar finale. Here, Ithaca is in ruins, its lands wasted by the loss of its king and soldiers and, more pressingly, by the suitors vying for Penelope’s (Juliette Binoche) hand. When Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) washes up on the shore, he remains reticent in the background, watchful and patient in discerning the state of the land and life he left behind.
Fiennes and Binoche’s performances are the reason to see The Return. Both carry the weight of years of unspoken, unspeakable trauma in their eyes; the Trojan War left no one unscathed, and the two actors masterfully convey multitudes in glances and silences.
Exquisitely filmed on location throughout Corfu and Ilía in the Western Peloponnese, Pasolini and cinematographer Marius Panduru root these mythic figures in their beautiful yet unforgiving natural world. Unfortunately, The Return finds no true surprises in this retelling – while selective in what it adapts, it interprets its chosen material with no narrative and few interpretive twists. The quotidian script is a far cry from Homeric poetry in any translation, and Charlie Plummer finds nothing in Telemachus beyond tiresome insolence.
Handsome to look at and more than handsomely acted by its two leads, The Return is a nice entry for Odyssey adaptation completists and Fiennes / Binoche fans – and offers an intriguing, subdued take on a tale Christopher Nolan is soon to deliver in blockbuster form – but leaves little for the casual viewer.
Released 11 Apr by Modern Films; certificate 15