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Unusually for an cinematic adaptation of a Greek myth, there are no gods or monsters to be found in The Return, Uberto Pasolini’s sombre, restrained telling of (the final chapters of) Homer’s Odyssey. The focus here is on the fallibly human, a broken man struggling to come to terms with the fact that there may be no way home — even when he is landed on its shores. Ralph Fiennes is the backbone of a film which reframes this ancient text to become a narrative of survival against one’s own personal demons.

A measured, introspective take

After premiering as a Gala Presentation in Toronto, The Return will release in the US on December 6 through Bleecker Street. The presence of Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, reuniting for the first time since The English Patient, may prove a draw for audiences, along with the timeless nature of the source material. Audiences expecting an action-packed epic may be disappointed, and some will be surprised by the abrupt switch of tone from Pasolini’s last film, 2020’s charmer Nowhere Special. Its measured, introspective take on familiar material will have an undoubted appeal, however.

Surrounded by the azure waters of the Ionian Sea, the island of Ithaca may look like paradise but has descended into a place of fear and suffering following the long absence of its king, Odysseus (Fiennes). He left two decades before, to fight the Trojan war, and his wife Penelope (Binoche) has stayed loyal, awaiting his return. The vultures are circling this dying land in the form of a legion of thuggish men from overseas, all attempting to stake their claim on Penelope — who is being increasingly pressured to accept Odysseus has been lost and choose a new husband.

When he does return, washed up half dead on the shore and tended to by faithful pig farmer Eumaes (Claudio Santamaria) — who, like everyone, fails to recognise the king he still serves — it is not the triumphant return of a powerful all-conquering hero. Instead, the screenplay by Pasolini, John Collee and the late Edward Bond follows Odysseus as he cowers in the shadows, hiding his identity as a beggar — a disguise he also donned to garner information ahead of the siege of Troy — and observing his wife and now-adult son, Telemachus (Charlie Plummer), from a distance.

Fiennes gives a pared-back, nuanced performance as Odysseus, a man who seems to have returned home more by accident than by design and is paralysed by the fear that he has changed too much to be accepted by Penelope. He carries the horrors of all he has seen, alongside the shame of surviving while his men died in battle. This psychological burden — PTSD, in modern terms — means it is not until the halfway point that Odysseus finds the strength to enter the palace, and even more time passes before he finally speaks to Penelope.

The film moves at a languid pace, with long periods of silence, and there’s not a great deal of action until a final cathartic orgy of violence. Yet this world is richly drawn. Costume designer Sergio Ballo and production designer Guiliano Pannuti veer away from traditional sword-and-sandal cinematic expressions of ancient Greece, drawing on African and Indian references to create unfussy costuming and domiciles — including the large fortress which houses the palace.

Cinematography by Marias Panduru captures the beauty of this landscape – the film shot largely on Corfu and in Peleponnese, on the southern tip of Greece, with the interiors built on soundstages in Rome. But his camera prefers to stays tight on the faces of the people telling this story. They are often lit by candlelight, in the flickering shadows. Somewhat obviously, the colour red is a recurring motif: blood on the land and in the water; the cloak of scheming, lovesick admirer Antinous (Marwan Kenzari); the wedding cloth that Penelope weaves and secretly unpicks at night to buy herself time.

Binoche’s Penelope stands firm in the face of agitated demands from the baying men who now fill her home, desperately trying to mend her fraying relationship with frustrated son and prowling the palace at night, torn between her desire for human connection and her loyalty to her husband. Fiennes matches her restraint with his own, keeping Odysseus locked up tight with his pain to a point where even those familiar with the story will wonder if he can ever find the strength to reveal himself. As the tension builds, however, it’s clear something has to break — and, when it does, the silence finally gives way to a fury that, despite Penelope’s pointed soliloquy about the unnecessary violence of men, ushers in both an essential end and a hopeful new beginning.