A visually stunning retelling of the final chapters of Odysseus' return home to Ithaca that is brutal, quiet, and an exploration of the traumas of war—but it's missing the supernatural
When I heard Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche were going to be in a new retelling of the Odyssey (focusing on just the final chapters following our hero's return back to Ithaca), I was stoked. This marks these two fantastic actors' first film together since 1996's The English Patient.
I'm also a long-time Odyssey stan, having fallen in love with the story upon my first read way back in 10th grade. Since then, I've revisited it over the years, especially the Emily Wilson translation that came out in 2018. And honestly, there hasn't been a good depiction of the story in quite a while. In the '90s, we had Armand Assante playing Odysseus in a TV movie (with a perfectly cast Isabella Rossellini playing the grey-eyed goddess Athena), which while entertaining wasn't quite classic cinema. You could also count 2000's O Brother, Where Art Thou?, though that's more of a loose adaptation updated to the 20th century.
With The Return, we pick up on the story nearly 20 years after Odysseus left his home to take up arms and join his fellow Greeks to fight against the Trojans across the sea. The war itself lasted for a decade, before our wily hero thought up the Trojan horse, which would turn the tide of the battle and end in Troy's destruction. While everyone else headed home, Odysseus spent another 10 years wandering the Greek isles, cursed by the sea god Poseidon.
When he finally makes it to the shore of Ithaca, he's battered, bruised, naked, distraught, and not even sure of where is until Eumaeus, a slave, tells him. This version of Odysseus, however, isn't the resilient hero (at least not yet)—he's a broken man filled with the horrors of war and PTSD.
His family, for whom he has so long fought to make it back to see, has their own issues too. Penelope is cornered by rapacious suitors that demand her hand in marriage while also ruining the island. Telemachus, their son, is man-child angry at both his mother and long-vanished father. Only Penelope, it seems, holds out hope.
For those familiar with the Odyssey (and I can't imagine someone seeing this movie who's not at least a little familiar with the age-old epic), you know the beats and the tropes, but the film takes its time with delivering some of them. With others, you get them ad nauseam. At times, I felt acutely Penelope's frustration as we watched her each evening unravel her shroud work on the loom, the bright red twine coiling away her progress. The camera lingers on many scenes on the island, and it feels at times like you're right there living on the craggy shores of Ithaca.
What this movie is missing, however, is the magic and the gods of the original source. Without Athena's constant guiding hand (and often appearing in disguise), Poseidon's unearthly rage, or Zeus' kingly machinations, the story misses something.
I know that the director chose to do this on purpose, to create a tale about humans and human destruction, but it doesn't exactly work for me. There's a majesty and grandeur to the Greek gods, and dare I say it a level of pettiness and fun that makes the story less about trauma and more about adventure.
Trauma is an important part of the human experience, and to be fair, one that's been overlooked in storytelling for much of history. The rise of A24 has given us many films that expertly explore trauma, and The Return follows the same sort of path. For me, though, it was a bit of a slog to watch, and as I left the theater, I was in a kind of numb place for a few hours. I don't think I saw Odysseus smile once in the entire movie, and the only time he expresses he gratitude for finally making it home, he literally stuffs his mouth with soil.
I'm glad I saw it—Fiennes' portrayal is excellent, and the production design is immaculate—but this one's for only hardcore Homer fans, I'm afraid.
Nerd Coefficient: 6/10.
POSTED BY: Haley Zapal, new NoaF contributor and lawyer-turned-copywriter living in Atlanta, Georgia. A co-host of Hugo Award-winning podcast Hugo, Girl!, she posts on Instagram as @cestlahaley. She loves nautical fiction, growing corn and giving them pun names like Timothee Chalamaize, and thinking about fried chicken.
