47/22
After 20 years, Odysseus finally returns to Ithaca to find his wife captured by suitors vying for kingship and his son facing death at their hands. Odysseus must regain his strength to win back his family and everything he has lost. This is the third time Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche have starred in a film together. They previously worked together in Wuthering Heights (1992) and The English Patient (1996). Penelope: How can men find their way to war but not home? Odysseus: For some, war becomes home. This treatise focuses on immersing the viewer in the multifactorial pain and suffering of Penelope and Odysseus as Odysseus returns to Ithaca. including PTSD and other mental health issues, returning to their past lives with family and society, and flashbacks of memories and pain they both endured and caused and resulting internal changes that are irreversible. The Return is carried by a great cast that allows the viewer to experience this rollercoaster ride of the two main characters to remarkable heights, the latter due to the unique and special resilience of Penelope and Odysseus during this difficult time in their lives, and without each other’s support. In fact, the two are kept quite separate throughout most of the build-up, which only makes the catharsis more intense in the more intense, thriller-like later part of an otherwise slower-burning film. Fiennes brings his unique style of portraying suffering to this work – a great extension of his wonderful skills at juxtaposing pain and torment in Spider and The End of the Affair. Binoche is the perfect choice for Penelope as the viewer can be tricked a little into feeling and hoping that the two will meet again in the same way that they were close throughout The English Patient and Pasolini uses this to add tension to the work for those whose memories of The English Patient are vivid. This is a great and very meaningful work that must be experienced!