The Return (2024)
How does one interpret The Odyssey while extricating all supernatural elements and digging into the interpersonal core of the finale? The first interaction between Penelope and Odysseus is a masterclass in subtext and a dissection of how two people might start to prod at one another when they have been apart for decades, suspicious and yet attentive. There is so much intimacy and suspicion between Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes that cannot be understated, layers of knowing and denial. Penelope has waited for Odysseus’ return all of these years. She has suffered. What did Odysseus do in Troy? What crimes did he commit? Penelope confronts this seeming stranger about it, but how much of her heart knows that this is him? Can she bring herself to admit that? Avoidant eyelines define both performance and camera language, which are countered in later conversations when the truth finally comes to light. Odysseus makes choices which directly affect his ability to return home, whether jeering at Polyphemus after escaping his cave or falling asleep and allowing his men to butcher the cattle of the Sun. But that is all in the past now and never touched upon in this adaptation. Instead we are left with Odysseus the man rather than the myth, and forced to sort out his choices and sins.
They really were just doing anything with cloth and calling it an outfit back in the day, weren’t they. All of the cloth wraps and scraps of this vision of Greece clash against fuck-ass haircuts in some cases, though at the very least we avoid any broccoli fades. That will be the true death knell of the period piece. One thing is for sure, though: absolutely no chance Matt Damon hangs dong like Fiennes did here.
THE RULES
SIP
Loom closeup.
Antinous starts to lecture Telemachus.
Caprine imagery.
BIG DRINK
Dong.
Someone dies.
Reference to Odysseus' previous journeys.
