The Return’s Bare-Bones Retelling of The Odyssey Rediscovers the Humanity in a Classic

The basic beats of Homer’s epic poem The Odyssey are familiar to millions thanks to high school English classes the world over, but the things you probably remember about its story, which follows the hero Odysseus’s decade-long journey home from the Trojan War, are the most fantastical. A saga of angry gods and vindictive goddesses, larger-than-life monsters and powerful sorceresses, The Odyssey sees its hero face off with everything from a six-headed dragon and a giant sentient whirlpool to cyclopes, man-eating giants, and Sirens. At various points in the story, he is kidnapped by a sea nymph, his men are turned into pigs, and he spends considerable time on an island whose inhabitants essentially do drugs all day. 

Director Uberto Pasolini’s bleakly lush The Return isn’t interested in any of that. This Odyssey retelling is restricted to the poem’s more overtly human final third, in which Odysseus finally returns home to his kingdom of Ithaca. The film chooses to excise almost all of the original’s supernatural elements, opting instead to tell a gritty tale about war and trauma that manages to feel surprisingly modern for all its spears and loincloths. Without the handy excuse that the gods (or a witch or a random monster) made Odysseus do it, this stripped-down version of the story forces its hero to confront the trauma that becoming a legend has made of him and the loss he subsequently left in his wake. 

The Return begins with Odysseus (Ralph Fiennes) washing up on the shore of Ithaca. Naked and unconscious, he’s rescued by the swineherd Eumaeus (Claudio Santamaria) who bundles him home without recognizing him. He fills his new guest in on the situation on the island: Ithaca’s king went away to war decades ago, but his Queen Penelope (Juliette Binoche) and their son Telemachus (Charlie Plummer) still live in the castle. The island has been overrun with a bevy of rude and ill-tempered suitors, all determined to force Penelope to admit her husband is dead and choose a new spouse—and therefore, a new king. Attempting to keep the horde of men who wish to claim her throne at bay, the queen spends her days dutifully weaving a funeral shroud for her husband’s mad father and insisting she’ll make a decision about her future once it’s complete. She secretly unravels her work each night, furiously pulling threads free in an act of rebellion and purpose she can allow no one else to see. 

Odysseus, for his part, is scarred in ways that go beyond the merely physical. A sinewy husk of a man whose quiet, insecure demeanor is at odds with the stories told of his legendary deeds, he clearly fears that the wife and son he left behind will never be able to accept or welcome the man he has become, after a decade of war and a subsequent ten-year voyage during which all his crew was killed. That no one seems to recognize him—save for his loyal hunting dog, who can die peacefully upon the realization his master has at long last returned—is an unexpected twist that, at first, seems like nothing so much as a blessing.

The slow burn that follows, in which Odysseus disguises himself as a beggar to renter the castle and endures much cruelty at the hands of both villagers and his wife’s suitors before finally reclaiming his home by way of a particularly dramatic feat of archery, will be familiar to anyone who even skimmed the Cliff Notes version of Homer’s epic. But Odyssesus’ reveal of himself, when it finally arrives, is genuinely thrilling, a long-awaited moment of reckoning and catharsis in which our hero steps out of the literal and figurative darkness that has surrounded him throughout the film. It helps that even Fiennes’s physique—all sinewy muscles, sharply defined abs, and bulging veins that could go up against any recent Marvel superhero transformation—reflects the hidden strength he has so deliberately kept leashed even as his demeanor reflects genuine regret at being forced to take up his bow once more. 

The deliberate choice to leave out most of the mythology-based elements of Homer’s classic—even the infamous Circe is reduced to a throwaway comment about “a woman” Odysseus was said to have allegedly spent years on an unnamed island with—means that The Return is perhaps the most grounded and realistic version of the tale we’ve seen onscreen to date. But its austere setting and frequently ponderous pace means that the film relies almost solely on the performances at its center to give its story depth and meaning. And thankfully its cast is (mostly) up to the challenge.

Fiennes is predictably outstanding, conveying Odysseus’ tortured emotional state through subtle vocal intonations and a perennially haunted expression. His Odysseus is less the Greek hero of legend and more a tortured PTSD patient, a man who has never quite left the nightmare of war behind him, and the trauma he carries is reflected in every aspect of his demeanor. Binoche is also excellent, infusing Penelope’s famous steadfast loyalty with a necessary streak of rage, effortlessly conveying the frustration and exhaustion she has been forced to carry for years. 

Though The Return marks the first time Fiennes and Binoche have worked together since 1996’s The English Patient, the film rarely allows them to share the screen and their characters only cross paths during a few key moments. If this movie has a glaring flaw, it’s that we just don’t get to see them interact enough, nor are we given much time to watch the story’s central relationship try and refit their jagged edges to one another. (Though the epilogue offers a surprisingly hopeful promise of healing.) Plummer’s Telemachus is also a weak link, whose arc lacks any of the subtlety of either of his parents. But by telling a decidedly bare-bones version of a story known for its scale and excess, The Return’s harsh landscape, stark costume choices, and violent undertones highlight the all-too-human struggles at its center in ways that make its ancient source material feel brand new.

Director: Uberto Pasolini
Writer: Edward Bond, John Collee, Uberto Pasolini
Stars: Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Marwan Kenzari, Claudio Santamaria, Ángela Molina
Release date: Dec. 6, 2024

Lacy Baugher Milas is the Books Editor at Paste Magazine, but loves nerding out about all sorts of pop culture. You can find her on Twitter @LacyMB