The Return

The Return

The Return (2024)

International

This "Odyssey" came out in 2024, starred two Oscar nominees (one winner), and played to near-empty theaters despite critical acclaim.

While Iphigenia (1977) gave us the beginning of the beginning of the journey, THE RETURN (2024) gives us only the end - the part after the monsters. No Cyclops. No Sirens. No Circe. No gods at all.

Director Uberto Pasolini cut every supernatural element out of the poem and kept what was left: a soldier washing up on a beach after twenty years of war, so wrecked by it that nobody on his own island knows his face.

Ralph Fiennes plays Odysseus, war-weary and starved to the bone. Juliette Binoche plays Penelope, holding a house full of men circling her husband's throne. It is the first time the two have appeared onscreen together since The English Patient (1996).

Pasolini shot it in Corfu and the Peloponnese with almost no visual effects. Real coastline, real stone, no army of digital ships.

The screenplay was the last thing Edward Bond ever wrote. Bond wrote Saved in 1965, the controversial play whose banning ultimately helped end theatre censorship in Britain. He also wrote the English dialogue for Antonioni's Blow-Up (1966). Bond died in March 2024, six months before this film reached its first audience.

About the Film

Some legends are more than myths.

Directed By
Uberto Pasolini
Runtime
116 minutes
Released
November 28, 2024
US Theatrical
December 6, 2024
Certification
R
Country
Greece, Italy, United Kingdom, France
Starring
Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Marwan Kenzari, Claudio Santamaria
More Credits
Genres
History, Drama, Adventure
Language
English
Origin
FR, GR, IT, GB
Studios
Picomedia, RAI Cinema, Redwave Films, Heretic, Kabo Films, Marvelous Productions, Ithaca Films, Greek Film Centre, ERT, UK Global Screen Fund, MiC, CNC
Written By
John Collee, Edward Bond, Uberto Pasolini, Homer
Produced By
Uberto Pasolini, James Clayton, Roberto Sessa, Vivien Aslanian, Marco Pacchioni, Andrew Karpen, Kent Sanderson, Stéphane Moatti, Giorgos Karnavas, Romain Le Grand, Konstantinos Kontovrakis, Ralph Fiennes, Keith Kehoe, Torsten Poeck, Linda Vianello
Cinematography
Marius Panduru
Music
Rachel Portman, Goffredo Gibellini
Also Starring
Ángela Molina, Nikitas Tsakiroglou, Tom Rhys Harries, Jamie Andrew Cutler, Moe Bar-El
Budget
$20,000,000
Box Office
$3,300,444

Where to Watch

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Source: JustWatch

Physical Media

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Comments

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  4. An outstanding movie. This might be the first time that Penelope was given the opportunity to show that her time without her husband was its own kind of localized epic.

  7. If there isn’t multiple radical chase scenes 🎬 and/or explosions, it doesn’t sell to the masses.
    A poignant film like this will find its audience over time, with home viewing. 🔥

    2. Eilish Carney True…but the film industry is a business and it has to attract the Gen Z demographic and the youth are the ones willing to spend their disposable income on entertainment.

    1. Siegfred Santillan that’s Hallmark TV mini series rather than movie.

      Definitely an adaptation worth watching though.

    1. It’s my favorite rendition of Odysseus and Penelope. The suitors are much more menacing so you get a better feel for what Penelope had to deal with for years. 

    1. John Whitcomb thats just crazy! How can you even suggest such a thing??? What would all these trolls do that are attacking Nolans movie?? But yeah, you are 💯 correct

  17. It played to near empty theaters because there was zero marketing for it. I don’t understand why that colleration is never considered. Playing to near empty theaters doesn’t mean it was bad. It means no one even knew it existed.

  20. It’s really well done and definitely a wonderful addition to the canon. I thought the suitors in this were much more menacing than Pattinson and the rest in Nolan’s Odyssey (which I still loved and am going to see in the theater again next week because there’s just so much to absorb!)

  23. Brilliant movie. Fiennes really showcased Odysseus’s loneliness and yearning for home. This was always going to be sidelined by the bigger budget film but I really enjoyed this.

  28. Every person who is angry that there are no Greek actors speaking Greek in The Odyssey should rent Iphigenia and see if that really is the problem with Nolan’s movie.

    1. Eric Furlong I would imagine the bigger problem would be that it is a Nolan movie, loud, big feels, superficial women who are mere adjuncts to the men.

      3. It’s an odd choice to make a movie that appeals to the largest number of people possible. He could have made a movie that would satisfy a few thousand university professors but he blew it.

  29. It’s a slow burn but worth a watch for the final act alone. The bow scene is just perfect. Fiennes and Binoche are excellent but the film slumps when they’re not on screen.

    1. Altaire Gural it has some great qualities, but it doesn’t capture what Homer wrote at all OTHER than Oddysseus’ desire to be home. Nolans film is a masterpiece.

  34. It’s a good movie, watched it the other night on Paramount Plus. Sad it got overlooked, great performances by Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche.

  45. I really enjoyed this movie. Too bad more folks haven’t seen it. It’s up on Hoopla and/or Kanopy if you have a library card and I recommend seeing it without commercial interruptions. Thanks to this site, I’ve seen The Trojan Women which was really good but hard to watch, and Iphigenia, which was also great but I had issues with the way the writer let certain guilty people off the hook. Electra is next but I need a bit of an emotional break first!

  47. I saw this one in theaters. I enjoyed it. Ralph Fiennes here is fantastic and he literally looks like he’s been through Hell.

    1. Marc Chomel he says….without seeing either one.

      Damon absolutely killed it as Odysseus. Might be his best performance. Or up there at least. Loved the movie.

      3. Deborah Griffin-Sadel absolutely. I thought the Return was decent. A bit slow and it removes MOST of what makes Homers poem so good.

  56. Never played in a theater remotely close to me. Had to find it streaming and pay. Good but quite violent. Very different than Nolan’s.

  58. Greate movie – and a MUCH better portrayal of the human beings in the story….something Nolan continually gets wrong in his movies.

  65. Probably empty theaters because of the nonexistent marketing budget they evidently must’ve had, as I’m pretty sure these posts are the first any of us are hearing about it – even from some of us who go to a *lot* of movies.

    1. Braeden Roesler it didn’t get a wide distribution. I guess it helps to have a big-name director attached to it. I recently watched it and it was very good

  71. “The Return” is Odysseus. Not the cunning warrior, not the King of Ithaka, not the seaman facing supernatural powers, but the broken man returning home after 20 years. of war and wandering. The movie is made of the rugged landscape and a man trying to find his way. It is the story of Penelope and Telemachus and the ‘suitors’ who make a mockery of his home. It is in the most primordial way, the story of homecoming. Ralph Fiennes is superb, he is utterly believable as the old warrior-King reduced to nothing.

  72. It’s amazing the amount of movies that get made and put out that go under the radar. I’ve never even heard of this movie, but I’ll check it out now for sure

  73. I keep mentioning this movie when it comes to comparisons with Nolan’s version, but everyone else has never heard of it, or they’re comparing other versions and Oh brother where art thou..

    The return was beautiful

  74. … i wish Ralph Fiennes made Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey, but it would have taken 20-years to make, and 2-months to watch.

  78. It’s silly to compare the two. One is played/scaled as Greek tragedy, the other as Greek epic adventure. There’s always been room for both approaches.

  85. I saw this movie being talked about at the same time they started talking about Nolan’s going into production…. Then it disappeared, & I’ve still yet to see it!

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