With his acclaimed drama Nowhere Special finally getting a U.S. release this past summer, four years after its premiere, Uberto Pasolini is now back with his next feature. The Return, which reunites the powerhouse duo of Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche, is an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey. Following a TIFF world premiere, Bleecker Street will release it in theaters on December 6 and now the first trailer has arrived.
Here’s the synopsis: “After 20 years away, Odysseus (Fiennes) washes up on the shores of Ithaca, haggard and unrecognizable. The King has returned from the Trojan War, but much has changed in his kingdom. His beloved wife Penelope (Binoche) is a prisoner in her own home, hounded by suitors vying to be king. Their son Telemachus faces death at the hands of these suitors, who see him as merely an obstacle to their pursuit of the kingdom. Odysseus has also changed—scarred by his experience of the Trojan war, he is no longer the mighty warrior from years past— but he must rediscover his strength in order to win back all he has lost.”
Ethan Vestby said in his TIFF review, “Not giving off the sense of a visual filmmaker, Pasolini isn’t quite able to tell his story through these bodies, though––a talky affair where dull power dynamics to take the crown hold precedence over everything else. And what these dynamics build to being a film with an unblinkered worship of monarchy (I guess we shouldn’t expect it not to be old-fashioned in that way) where the old conquers the new. Of course, that’s what the elder audience this is built for will want: a reassurance of existing power structures, even if through the realm of a Homer adaptation.”
See the trailer below.
