The Return (2024 film)

Twenty years after setting off to fight in the Trojan War and surviving many trials, Odysseus washes up naked on the shores of his home island Ithaca. He is found and tended to by the slaves Eumaeus and Yias. Odysseus is dispirited and traumatized by his experiences and learns about the decline of his kingdom.

Odysseus' wife Penelope faces pressure to find a suitor, given that many believe her husband to be dead. Her son Telemachus is approached by the nobleman Antinous, who attempts to convince him to press Penelope into marriage. The young man refuses, distrusting Antinous and the other suitors.

Meanwhile, Penelope weaves her elderly father-in-law's burial shroud before his impending death. Telemachus asks her to take a suitor to end the chaos, but she refuses until she completes the shroud. Odysseus' father dies; the suitors interrupt his funeral to threaten Penelope and her son unless a decision is made. Penelope fends them off by saying that now, she must weave a cloak for her wedding and only then will she choose.

Meanwhile, Eumaeus takes Odysseus to the palace, where the hunting dog Argos recognizes his master after a long wait and then dies. Odysseus poses as a beggar to ask for alms; the suitors abuse him. They force him to fight a huge man, but Odysseus kills him. Suspicious, Penelope speaks to Odysseus but ends up ordering him to be tended to and sent off after he refuses to answer her questions.

Odysseus' old nursemaid Eurycleia discovers his identity while bathing him, after recognizing a scar on the back of his leg. He bids her be silent. Antinous persuades the suitors to form a hunting party and kill Telemachus while he's out walking in the woods, but Odysseus intervenes and reveals himself to his son. Odysseus, Telemachus, and Eumaeus flee, while Yias is killed by the suitor Eurymachus. Failing to find their quarry, the hunting party returns to the palace. Both Telemachus and Eumaeus rebuke Odysseus for his cowardice and question why he would even bother to return, having heard rumors that he abandoned Penelope to live with another woman.

Antinous discovers Penelope unraveling her weaving at night. The next day, Odysseus learns that his wife has decided on who shall marry her. He arrives at the palace right as Penelope tells the suitors that her choice is to make them compete with Odysseus' old bow, seeing if they can shoot an arrow through the holes of multiple axe heads, as he did in his youth. None of them can even string the bow properly, and Antinous goads them into once again threatening Penelope with harm.

Odysseus then offers to try, strings it, and shoots the arrow through the axe heads. He then starts killing the suitors as the royal servants close the doors to prevent escape. When his arrows run out, Odysseus relentlessly kills the few who remain by hand. Telemachus is tempted to flee, but he helps his father fight. Antinous surrenders, and Penelope, desirous of peace and tired of the violence, bids Telemachus let him live. Telemachus instead decapitates him as Penelope can only scream in horror.

Telemachus insists on sailing off to find himself and his destiny. While begging Penelope to forgive him, Odysseus notices that she is using an unfamiliar bed. He goes to a hidden upper-level room and finds their old bed, which she had sealed away after he left. Odysseus and Penelope reconcile with each other and offer to share their past years to move on with their future together.

In July 2024, The Return was announced as part of the Gala section at the Toronto International Film Festival scheduled for September 2024.^[12] The film was theatrically released on December 6, 2024, in the United States by Bleecker Street.^[13] Distributed by 01 Distribution,^[14] it was released in cinemas in Italy on January 30, 2025. It was featured in the Limelight section of the 54th International Film Festival Rotterdam, to be screened in February 2025.^[15]

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 78% of 85 critics' reviews are positive. The website's consensus reads: "The Return removes the mythology from Odysseus' homecoming along with some of the fun, but Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche's terrific performances keep this drama absorbing."^[16]

Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 66 out of 100, based on 26 critics, indicating "generally favorable" reviews.^[17]

Katie Walsh in the Los Angeles Times calls the movie "an acting showcase",^[18] with Jeannette Catsoulis in The New York Times also praising strong performances by Fiennes and Binoche.^[19] Reviewers, including Corey Atad in the Toronto Star, noted the Shakespearean quality of the drama.^[20]

Radheyan Simonpillai in The Guardian called the film a "handsome, sombre and meditative take" on Homer's poem.^[21] In his view, Pasolini's approach is admirable for its "narrative restraint", and visually splendid, but lacking in other ways; he thinks Fiennes and Binoche's performances are excellent, but the supporting cast "leaden by comparison".^[21]

The film critic Matt Zoller Seitz, on RogerEbert.com, writes that "flat 'realism' in the action and filmmaking ... and a superimposing of contemporary psychodrama onto Homer’s myths, is at odds with the material in fundamental ways", resulting in "a thoughtfully acted but solemn slog".^[22] In Seitz's view, the film is asking Fiennes to do "an awful lot of silent musing" that just tells the audience what they already know, and the loss of the supernatural takes away much of Odysseus's "vigor and depth".^[22]

The production lacks any of the gods of Homer's poem, according to Pasolini. There are further no monsters or mythical beings such as the Cyclops and sirens, in contrast to Nolan's film.^[6] Pasolini said that his Odysseus had to feel that the guilt and pain from the siege of Troy and the deaths of his companions "was his own doing".^[6] Fiennes did physical training for five months to acquire the wiry and muscular body that Pasolini wanted for Odysseus, followed by 2+1⁄2 months of running and weight training to reduce his body fat as far as possible. Odysseus's body was intended to look "like a bit of old rope" rather than a "gym body", in Fiennes' words.^[6]

Ben Nicholson, reviewing for the British Film Institute, writes that the film reworks only the second half of the poem, omitting all the "famous wanderings" and the adventures with the siren's songs, blinding the Cyclops, or having his men turned into pigs by the enchantress Circe. In his view, leaving out all the "supernatural winds" and mythical beings permits Pasolini to tell the tale realistically and foregrounds the characters' psychology. He finds both the narrative and the filmmaking "stripped back", with "elegant and understated" cinematography. The result, writes Nicholson, is a "nuanced psychological drama" that takes an unflinching look at the story, providing "gripping" cinema.^[23] Ian Haydn Smith, for the International Film Festival Rotterdam, describes the film as an "emotionally intense drama, rapturously shot by Marius Panduru". He finds Fiennes's subtle acting and physical transformation equally remarkable, ably matched by Binoche "at her most incandescent".^[24]

• Odyssey#Film and television – earlier films of The Odyssey