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| Ralph Fiennes as Odysseus |
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WARNING: spoilers.]
Do you remember studying Homer's Odyssey (Ὀδύσσεια/Odysseia in Greek) in junior high or high school? I recall periodically wondering why we'd study such a book in English class given that it wasn't originally written in English. It may have been a Great Books or Western canon thing. I imagine that there was some utility, though: we could talk about story structure, themes, setting, character motivations, and all the other elements of story.
My recollection of the Odyssey doesn't amount to much: Odysseus is one of the cleverest of warriors, and after the Greek victory at Troy, he turns homeward with his men but is waylaid by the gods, monsters, and cruel fate, losing men one at a time, until only he remains. Meanwhile, his wife Penelope and his son Telemachus must defend themselves from predatory suitors who move into the castle, eat from the royal stores, and crassly demand that Penelope (1) acknowledge she is a widow and (2) marry one of their number. Penelope begins to weave a cloth and tells the suitors she will make a decision once the cloth is done, but at night, she undoes part of the weaving in order to slow her progress and delay the time of decision. Odysseus finds his way back to his home, and he is generally not recognized along the way, but near the castle, his old dog, who has waited long for his master, recognizes him and dies content. An old servant also recognizes him. As the suitors grow more demanding, Penelope finally says she will marry the man who can string Odysseus' bow and fire an arrow perfectly through a series of axe heads—something Odysseus himself had been able to do. Disguised as a beggar, Odysseus watches as each suitor fails to string the bow, then he himself steps up, strings the bow, and successfully fires an arrow through the narrow tunnel created by the row of axe heads. After that, he is revealed as Odysseus, and pandemonium breaks out as he and Telemachus massacre the suitors. And all live happily ever after.
That's my flawed memory of the story. "The Return" is a 2024 film directed by Uberto Pasolini, starring Ralph Fiennes, Juliette Binoche, Charlie Plummer, Claudio Santamaria, and Marwan Kenzari. It's a racially diverse cast for what is primarily a Greek story, but nothing much is made of the diversity. "The Return" concerns itself mostly with the "third act" of the Odyssey, i.e., it starts with Odysseus, after twenty years, washing ashore on his home island of Ithaca, naked, travel-worn, injured, and barely alive. Odysseus (Fiennes), whom no one recognizes as their long-lost king, is found and taken in by Eumaeus (Santamaria), a slave and swineherd. Eumaeus tends to Odysseus' wounds, giving him food and clothing. Meanwhile, Penelope (Binoche) is still at the castle, where she is being hounded by a pack of suitors whose ringleader is the smooth Antinous (Kenzari). Penelope's son Telemachus (Plummer), who has no memory of his father, is powerless against the suitors, and Ithaca itself has fallen slowly into ruin as its people have lost hope. The major story beats are the same as in the Greek epic: Odysseus eventually makes his way to the castle, meets his dog Argos for the last time, strings his own bow, and successfully fires the arrow, then with his son, he massacres the suitors.
But the movie, which concentrates on only a small part of the original epic, has room to fill the plot with more dimension and characterization, taking time to explore the main characters' thoughts and feelings about the situation they find themselves in. This is, a bit like the long-ago movie "Troy," a mostly demythologized telling of the story. I'm trying to recall whether the characters even mention the gods or cosmic forces like fate even once. What comes through is that the people of Ithaca are sad about having no king, and they're tired of the conflict that took away their best men. Odysseus is reluctant to reveal himself to his people, seeing as he is the lone survivor of the long misadventure. What kind of leader starts a campaign with faithful men and returns alone? As someone unrecognized at first, Odysseus also gets to hear the people tell stories of his and his men's exploits, and we come to understand that the film is exploring the question of how facts become legend. While Antinous is the first suitor to die in Homer's story, he's the last suitor to die in the movie. A lot is made of how war and constant violence can change people, and before he is killed by Telemachus, Antinous gives Penelope a look and asks whether Odysseus—now covered in blood and filled with battle-lust—truly represents the love she seeks. Penelope begs Telemachus to spare Antinous' life, but Telemachus beheads him all the same. The festival room of the castle has become an abattoir. But the last part of this story shows Odysseus and Penelope finding their old bed, which she had stored in a separate part of the castle once Odysseus had gone away to war; they speak to each other of reconnecting by sharing their separate pasts; they promise to share each other's memories, and then to do what they can to forget and to start anew.
"The Return" is a very slow movie. While it contains a lot of dialogue and relatively little action, it's mostly a showcase for haunted looks and long, lingering moments. There is little in the way of special effects, but the movie was beautifully filmed on location in Greece and Italy, and the sound design was nothing short of incredible, with constant reminders of the blowing wind and the crashing surf. Odysseus and Penelope are both written as characters who have lived through specific hells, yet who speak little about those experiences. The few fights that occur over the course of the plot aren't scripted to look like Zack Snyder or Hong Kong actioner battles; the action is at times brutal, but it's minimally bloody and almost primitive in a good way. Odysseus doesn't undergo a Marvel-style, effects-filled transformation into a conquering superhero, but Ralph Fiennes did obviously undergo some massive training: he spends most of the film only partially clothed, so we have a chance to see his corded, veiny muscles, which are meant to evoke Odysseus' former prowess and glory.
Penelope's seeming sympathy for Antinous, who had done his best to gain her affections, probably stemmed from her desire to see no more bloodshed; when she cries out in anguish as Telemachus beheads Antinous, it's not because she harbored any affection for him, but rather because she saw that Telemachus, who had been resentful toward Odysseus for much of the story, had suddenly become his father's son once the slaughter started. Penelope's anguish was more about her son than about Antinous, and her final, gentle dialogue with Odysseus, about memories and forgetting, cements that fact.
Kudos to the film for its magnificent cinematography and sound design, both of which tangibly evoke ancient Ellas. Kudos as well to the cast, all of whom perform their roles strongly and believably. Ralph Fiennes's Odysseus is a king and war veteran humbled by what he's been through; Juliette Binoche's Penelope longs for her husband but finds that longing troubled when she finally meets him; Charlie Plummer's Telemachus starts off seeming helpless at first, but he grows and matures as the plot unfolds, finally becoming something close to a warrior and an adventurer by the end. Marwan Kenzari is slithery and snakelike as Antinous, who is less hungry for Penelope's riches than for Penelope herself. Claudio Santamaria, as the kind Eumaeus, makes a strong impression as a person of the land who holds on to hope that the king will eventually return, but who also understands the costs of hardship and war. I also need to highlight a cast member not mentioned earlier: Angela Molina, who plays Eurycleia, the old servant who recognizes Odysseus when she's washing him and sees an old scar on his leg. Eurycleia's moment of recognition is unexpectedly touching. The cast members playing the rest of the suitors were all appropriately boorish.
Interestingly, Homer's Odyssey includes a coda about the castle's serving girls, who were hanged for having sex with the suitors while the latter waited for Penelope's decision; although the movie includes corner-of-the-eye scenes of sex in dimly lit sections of the castle, there is no follow-up scene of retribution against the castle's maidens. That said, if you're in the mood for a demythologized version of the Odyssey, and if you don't mind a bit of a slow burn, Uberto Pasolini's film may be for you. Overall, I liked it and recommend it. I found myself remembering parts of the Odyssey as the film's story unfolded before me; I think the movie also explores, at least somewhat, the trauma known to war veterans everywhere, and what it means to come back to a life that one is no longer suited for. The film also faces the issue of revenge, but I came away feeling that the revenge against the suitors was more of a karmic inevitability and not the film's main point. This was more about being broken and trying to heal, and the things that occur along the path to healing. I can see certain traditionalists vehemently rejecting this film's interpretation of Homer's classic; they have that right. For myself, though, I thought this was a good story well told. And a human one.
